Full text of "Unconsciousness"

See other formats

> DO ^

<OU_1 64291 |m

OgfeANU UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

Gall Np: \^ ' %'ftfQty' U. Accession No. 2> \$ 1 )

Authoi

This book should be returned on or before the o^te last marked below.

WILEY PUBLICATIONS IN PSYCHOLOGY

INTRODUCTION TO PSYCHOLOGY. By Edwin G Bor-
ing, Herbert S. Langfeld, and Harry P. Weld.

STATISTICAL DICTIONARY OF TERMS AND SYMBOLS.
By A. K. Kurtz and //. A. ledger ton.

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY. By Daniel Katz and Richard
L. Schanck.

HEARING ITS PSYCHOLOGY AND PHYSIOLOGY. By
S. Smith Stevens and Halloiscll Davis.

MANUXL OF PSYCHIATRY AND M TNT XL HYGIENE.
Seventh Kdition. By Aaron J '. RosanojJ.

A MANUAL OF PSYCHOLOGICAL EXPERIMENTS. By
Boring, Lang f eld, and Weld.

WORKBOOK IN PSYCHOLOGY. By C II. Wedcll.

STATISTICAL METHODS IN BIOLOGY, MEDICINE, AND
PSYCHOLOGY. Fourth Edition. By C. B.
Davenport and Merle P. Ekas.

MOTIVATION OF BEHAVIOR. By P. T. Young.

PSYCHOLOGY A FACTUAL TEXTBOOK. By Boring,
Lang f eld, and Weld.

PSYCHOLOGY IN BUSINESS AND INDUSTRY. By John
G. Jenkins.

Herbert S. Langfeld
Advisory Editor

UNCONSCIOUSNESS. By James Crier Miller.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PERSONAL ADJUSTMENT. By
Fred McKinney.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SOCIAL MOVEMENIS. By
Uadley Canlril.

Unconsciousness

JAMES GRIER MILLER

SOCIETY OF FELLOWS,
HARVARD UNIVERSITY

NEW YORK: JOHN WILEY & SONS, INC.

LONDON: CHAPMAN & HALL, LIMITED

1942

/AMI S (jRlFR MlLLFR

All Rig/its Reserved

This book or an V P iirt thereof must not
be repiodtucd in any fui m without
the wnttcn permission oj the publisher.

PRINTLD IN THF UNITED STATES Ol- AMERICA

PREFACE

The enigma of unconsciousness has been studied and disputed by
psychologists for many years. It has been approached from many
angles, from the neurological at the one extreme to the philosophical
at the other. It has been the subject of careful experimentation on
the one hand and of soaring theorizing on t^ggfji^f/^ff^robkm
has embraced such different phenomena as fainting, hypnosis, in-
attention, creativity, repression, and instinctual behavior.

Some who have interested themselves in these questions have
seen that all these sorts of unconsciousness cannot be identical, and
they have often insisted that they do not even have similar char-
acteristics. Therefore various terms have been invented, compounds
of the word conscious, in order to distinguish and explain these
different phenomena. Such words are subconscious, prcconscious,
joreconscious, supcrconscious t coconscious, and so forth. The result
of this neologizing, however, has not been increased clarity, but
greater confusion. Moreover, many dissimilar sorts of behavior are
still called unconscious, without any effort's being made to define
the various senses of this wide term.

This book attempts to distinguish the various meanings of the
word unconscious which have been used, and to describe and
differentiate carefully the diverse sorts of human behavior which
have been included under this term. Then each of the phenomena
is considered at length; the clinically and experimentally determined
facts about each one are reviewed; and an evaluation is made of
the present state of knowledge on that specific subject. Not until
this detailed study of each sort of unconsciousness has been made
can the common aspects of them all be thrown into their proper
light in a way that is even slightly more than speculative. When
such a procedure is followed, however, solid bases for a tentative
theory of unconsciousness begin to appear. Only by such an approach

vi PREFACE

can any conclusion be reached as to how conscious behavior is
like unconscious and how it is different.

This is a central problem for both the psychological laboratory
and the psychiatric clinic, for academic psychologists, psychoanalysts,
and psychiatrists alike. There has, however, been little co-operation
between them in investigating it. It is essential that a rapprochement
between the various psychological sciences be accomplished. The
issue of unconsciousness offers an excellent occasion to illustrate
how this can be achieved. It is only one of many problems in which
all branches of the psychological science will find mutual benefit
in co-operation. Such a co-ordinated program is the procedure
offering the greatest hope that, in the future, sense can be made in
many fields of human personality and behavior which today are
realms of ignorance and nonsense.

JAMES GRIER MILLER

CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
November, 1941

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

In the conception and in the execution of this book I have always
been able to turn to Professor Edwin G. Boring for advice. From
basic concepts to banal commas his criticism has been of immeasur-
able value, and I here express my gratitude. I am also deeply grate-
ful to the others who have spent hours reading the manuscript and
suggesting improvements: Professor Lawrence J. Henderson, Pro-
fessor Henry A. Murray, Dr. Stanley Cobb, Professor Herbert S.
Langfeld, Dr. J. Keith Butters, Mr. and Mrs. Donald W. Fiske, and
my father.

I wish also to thank my wife for her long-suffering and con-
tinual co-operation in every aspect of the preparation of this book.
She was a Without Whom Who.

To the Society of Fellows of Harvard University, of which I
have been a member during the writing of these chapters, and to
my friendly relationships with each of the Senior Fellows, I am
deeply indebted.

Three members of the Harvard faculty will find some small part
of their thoughts and beliefs reflected throughout this book. While
they are by no means responsible for the errors and faults of this
book, the instruction and inspiration of each in his own way have
been the foundation of this writing. To them this book is inscribed

PROFESSOR EDWIN G. BORING

PROFESSOR LAWRENCE J. HENDERSON

PROFESSOR HENRY A. MURRAY

CONTENTS

PAGE

INTRODUCTION Clinic and Laboratory i

CHAPTER I Definitions and Criteria of Unconscious-
ness 1 6

II Cases of Unconsciousness 45

III The Approach to Unconsciousness 75

IV Neurophysiology of Unconsciousness 92
V States of Unconsciousness 116

VI Subliminal Unconsciousness 135

VII Inattentive Unconsciousness 159

VIII Insightless Unconsciousness 183

IX Forgetful Unconsciousness 210

X Inherited Unconsciousness 240

XI Involuntary Unconsciousness 257

XII Incommunicable Unconsciousness 267

XIII Inventory of Unconsciousness 293

Index 315

INTRODUCTION
CLINIC AND LABORATORY

Two principal methods of unraveling the tangled skeins of a
problem like the nature of unconscious processes are available, the
clinical and the experimental. Added to these two scientific pro-
cedures is a third artistic or common-sense attack on the question,
the judgment of insightful individuals upon the nature of the phe-
nomena. This last might be considered a sort of clinical procedure,
because it is based on the experiences of these individuals with their
fellow men. An example of such intuitive insight which has often
been referred to is Nietzsche's aphorism on forgetting, which
presaged by many years the psychoanalytic theory of repression (cf.
Chapter X, p. 250). Such inspired interpretations of obscure phe-
nomena have been the forerunners of many of the important
discoveries of psychological science as well as many of its notorious
fallacies.

A more careful technique for arriving at basic explanations of a
question like the nature of unconscious processes is the clinical com-
pilation of numerous cases. This approach studies the patient as a
whole, but has the disadvantage of being unable to control his be-
havior carefully by putting him in various situations and watching
his reactions to them. Such use of controls is possible only in labora-
tory experimentation, which is therefore the most certain method.
Its greatest fault lies in the necessity of limiting any one experi-
mental investigation to a single aspect of the behavior of the persons
being studied, so neglecting the fact that they are total individuals.

The first clues concerning the operation of unconscious processes
have come, for the most part since 1878, from the insights of such |
men as Charcot, Breuer, Janet, Freud, Jung, and Adler, but most
of the present understanding of them is based on clinical evidence.
Though as late as 1928 it was true that unconsciousness had been

2 CLINIC AND LABORATORY

studied only slightly in a purely experimental manner, 1 the findings
of the laboratory on this subject are becoming in recent years
increasingly significant.

THE SEPARATENESS OF CLINIC AND LABORATORY

It takes no astute geographer to find the Grand Canyon, and it
takes no experienced psychologist to discover the gulf between
clinic and laboratory in psychology. This distinctipn between the
academic-theoretical and the practical-applied exists in all sciences
and arts, but in none does it approach mutual isolation closer than
in psychology. Both sides would profit by rapprochement.

Such co-operation is perhaps more possible now than it was in
the last decade or two. In the early development of clinical psy-
chology it was thought that there should naturally be some relation-
ship between the academic laboratory psychology and the applied
science. Later, because of the obviously great differences in the pur-
poses of applied and pure research psychology, disagreements grew
up between the two. The result was polemic. Especially was this
true when academic psychologists felt themselves made insecure by
being confronted with the tradition-shattering enfant terrible of the
clinic, psychoanalysis. It is not difficult to find in the earlier criticism
of psychoanalysis by the academics such caustic sentences as the
following of Dunlap's: 2

Psychoanalysis is the most horrible example of the confusions and
intellectual stultifications to which we are led by the abuse of abstrac-
tions, and the serious social and individual damage which this perni-
cious mystical system produces are striking indications of the practical
dangers of this type of superstitious thinking. . . . The psychoana-
lytic chief devil, repression, has lost its tail and pitchfork and smell
of sulphur, and terrifies only the weaker brethren. The analogical
interpretation of dreams has become recognized as merely a hocus
pocus to impress the paying patients. . . . There is hope that before

X F. L. Wells, in C. M. Child ft al., The Unconscious: A Symposium, New York: Knopf,
1929, 223.

2 K. Dunlap, The use and abuse of abstractions in psychology, Philos. Rev., 36, 1927,
486-7. By permission of the Philosophical Review.

THE SEPARATENESS OF CLINIC AND LABORATORY 3

long the psychoanalysts will learn enough psychology to abandon
even their chief divinity, the Unconscious Mind.

There are reasons enough for the lack of co-ordination of clinic
and laboratory in psychology. One is the historical fact that clinical
psychology developed naturally as an outgrowth of medical science.
The doctor was presented with a patient who had symptoms of a
nervous or mental disease. His medical code made his main task
doing something specific for that specific patient. He was more
interested in psychopathology than in normal psychological proc-
esses, and his orientation was toward disease rather than health.
The roster of renowned experimental psychologists includes in its
earliest generation some physicians, some biologists, and some physi-
ologists, but, whatever their profession, they were concerned pri-
marily with the normal functioning of the typical human mind.
They bore no responsibility, in general, for the warfare against
disease, and references in their writing to pathology or psycho-
pathology are rare.

Historically, the vagaries of academic organization have been in
large part responsible for the separation of clinic and laboratory in
psychology. The fathers of present academic psychology in the
middle of the last century succeeded in setting themselves up in
chairs independent of the medical faculty. They held professorships
of physiology (which at that time was far removed from clinical
practice of medicine) or of philosophy or, in America, simply of
psychology. Psychological institutes sprang up in Germany late in
the last century. The tradition of magnificent isolation and inde-
pendence of such institutes made interdepartmental co-operation in
the German universities of the last century unusual. All these cir-
cumstances bent the twigs of laboratory and medical psychology
far apart so that only a few of their branches have grown into
proximity again.

A second reason for the independence of the two fields is the
disparity of their purposes. The clinician has always thought in
terms of the individual. The research psychologist on the other hand
has continually desired to understand "mind" in general. He has

4 CLINIC AND LABORATORY

hoped to be able at length to qualify as a natural scientist in good
standing, his procedures often being patterned after those of the
physiologist, particularly the neurophysiologist. The neurophysiolo-
gist dissects a score of cats in order to determine a certain fact about
the function of nervous tissue. The names, pedigrees, and life his-
tories of those cats are of little importance to him. What matters
is the general law for all cats. Similarly for most psychologists of
the laboratory tradition the life history of the subject being experi-
mented upon or the details of his heredity were of minor im-
portance. As long as he seemed "normal" he would be a satisfactory
subject to use in determining the general law for all human beings.
What interest experimental psychologists have shown in individual
differences has arisen mainly from a desire to learn how they can
be controlled in order to get general laws.

Certain psychologists of the academic variety have insisted,
furthermore, that the study of the individual is not scientific, be-
cause they believe that a psychological law must apply to the whole
of some class of individuals rather than to any one person. Express-
ing this attitude Meyer wrote: 3 "A description of one individual
without reference to others may be a piece of literature, a biography
or a novel. But science ? No."

The psychological clinic and laboratory differ not only in historical
background and in purpose, but also in procedure. The experimental
psychologist has been continually harassed in his effort to develop
a respectable natural science by the complexity of his subject matter.
Dissatisfied because the difficulty of his problems forces many of
his careful studies to be picayune and insignificant, while his
investigations of more complex phenomena can rarely be adequately
controlled, he has placed a strong emphasis upon proper meth-
odology. He is often told by his critics that this preoccupation with
method is a defense mechanism, a sort of retreat from his failures.
However this may be, in determining facts the experimentalist has
adhered closely to the routine of (a) observing a large number of

3 M. F. Meyer, Review of Handbuch der vergleichendcn Psychologic, cd. G. Kafka, Psychol.
Bull., 23, 1926. 271.

THE SEPARATENESS OF CLINIC AND LABORATORY 5

individuals; (b) abstracting one character for study; (c) observing
how environmental changes affect this character; (d) generalizing
and determining a law from quantitative measurements of variations
of this character; and (e) making an empirical check to determine
the extent of applicability of the law.

The clinician, whether medical or psychological, has always been
unable to do this sort of experimentation under what the laboratory
scientist would consider properly controlled conditions. Many phy-
sicians consider it unethical, for instance, for a physician to treat one
group of patients with full doses of a drug that is known to be
beneficial and give others half doses to study the effect. Doctors
have, however, profited from the unpleasant fact that certain catas-
trophes of our civilization set up controls. Shrapnel wounds in
wartime destroy parts of the nervous system which the surgeon
could never conscientiously attack. The costliness of certain
medical and psychological treatments makes them unavailable to
the poor, and knowledge is advanced at the expense of their happi-
ness. In general, though, adequate controls are not available to the
clinician, and he is unable to advance his knowledge by the pro-
cedure which the experimental physiologist and psychologist hold
practically sacrosanct.

Analysis has been the key procedure of the laboratory psycholo-
gists. The individual as a whole has almost invariably been consid-
ered too tough a nut to crack, and so ordinarily he has been divided
into smaller units which could be attacked one at a time. For many
traditional psychologists the units were "faculties" like the will and
the reason; for associationists they were ideas; for functionalists they
were single acts; for behaviorists they were stimulus-response coitf-
binations.

There has, of course, been within psychology of the experimental
tradition reaction against this analytic building-block attitude toward
human personality. The Gestalt psychologists have insisted that the
individual and the situation as a whole should be considered. Soon
they found themselves devoting their theory and experimentation
to small sectors of the personality, such as visual perceptions

6 CLINIC AND LABORATORY

although certain workers influenced by this school, as Lewin, con-
tinued to view the person in the large. The psychology of Verstehen
has contended more radically that there must be two entirely
separate psychologies, one of total structures and the other of ele-
ments, and that these cannot have any interrelationship. More
recently the personalistic psychology, especially that of William
Stern, has gained importance in the experimental tradition. This
orientation toward the single person as the unit of study, however,
is favored by only a minority today. It is fair to say that the general
ideal of the psychology of the laboratory has been to study human
behavior at the molecular level with the hope that when the mole-
cules are understood they will fit together like pieces of a puzzle
to make a portrait of a man. In like manner the physiologist has
dissected animals into organs and organs into cells, and the analysis
of cells is now well advanced. This recourse to elements is the ex-
perimental method of natural science.

As the clinician in medicine has never followed the methods of
the physiologist, so the clinician in psychology differs from the
experimentalist. He who deals with problems of the psychological
clinic must recognize that all components of the personality operate
at once. The patient receives sensations from all his sensory organs
at once; he is driven by somagenic and sociogenic needs; he is deter-
mined by his past behavior and by his environment and heredity;
his goals are many and they are constantly changing. As opposed
to the microscopic, molecular view, the clinician must take the
macroscopic view. His unit may be no smaller than the individual.

The last cause which we shall discuss of the division between
laboratory and clinic in psychology is the difference in personality
and outlook of the men in the two fields. Whether because the two
kinds of activity appeal to men of different temperaments or because
the disparate trainings and traditions result in dissimilar viewpoints,
it is true that the attitude of the psychologist in the clinic is unlike
that of the psychologist in the laboratory. Murray has distinguished 4

4 H. A. Murray et al., Explorations in Per 'tonality -, New York: Oxford University Press,
1938, 746-7. By permission of Oxford University Press, New York.

THE SEPARATENESS OF CLINIC AND LABORATORY 7

the personality characteristics of extraception, "A practical 'down-to-
earth' skeptical attitude. Enjoyment of clearly observable results";
and intraception, "An imaginative, subjective, human outlook."
Clinical psychologists tend to be in general intraceptive, and aca-
demic psychologists on the whole are extraceptive.

It is understandable that these two types of temperament would
find it difficult to agree on the question which they have disputed
most vehemently what it is to be scientific. To the clinician the
true science is that which most adequately organizes the facts which
demand explanation, and, if the data are inadequate for certain
aspects of the explanation to be carefully worked out, a sad necessity
postpones this investigation until the future. The investigator in the
laboratory, on the other hand, is often so distressed if his results
do not add up correctly in the cents column that he never gets to
the dollars.

An illustration of this difference in temperament appears in the
popular interest aroused by the writings of the two groups. For
sheer readability the publications of experimental psychology in
general fall far short of those by clinicians, whose allegories, in-
triguing figures of speech, and piercing flashes of insight into the
nature of humanity make their writing sometimes approach the
borders of prose poetry. The fascination of Freud's books, for in-
stance, has given them such popular appeal that in the publishing
world they have practically the rating of novels. Academics eschew
such a style because they feel that it is usually the siren's call to
loose thinking. A lawyer rising continually to object to the intro-
duction of improper evidence in a trial risks being stigmatized as
an obstructionist even though he is in the right.

In medicine as well as in psychology, and in fact in every field
where the applied and the theoretical are studied by separate groups,
each group naturally thinks that its own aims and achievements are
the more important. This causes lack of mutual understanding. A
research man has the propensities of a collector. He delights in
amplifying the knowledge of his particular specialty even if it is of

8 CLINIC AND LABORATORY

no immediate importance to mankind, just as the geographer de-
lights in mapping the jungle never before visited by man. The
temperament of the clinician, utterly confident of the importance
of his own attempt to help those who need care, frequently makes
him view such laboratory research as sterile thirsting after useless
knowledge. Co-operation of clinic and laboratory must be premised
on, among other things, understanding of the frequently demon-
strated usefulness of "useless" knowledge.

Anatomists have repeatedly been criticized in the past for
pedantry and lack of realism because their research has proceeded
ever since the Renaissance to study the structure of such apparently
insignificant bits of human tissue as the vermiform appendix and
the carotid body. Now the importance of accurately understanding
these structures is recognized by all physicians, and the anatomists
are off in quest of other "useless" facts. This same sort of applicability
may well be found for "pure" psychological research now being
conducted in the laboratory. It must be admitted, however, that,
though in the medical sciences a large part of the work of the
laboratories has found direct application to the practice of the clinic,
as yet the proportion of practically useful work which has been
done in psychological laboratories is much smaller.

These temperamental dissimilarities between clinicians and
academicians exist and cannot be wished away, but the differences
between the two groups in historical background and procedure
are not necessarily barriers to co-operation, and the temperamental
differences need not be either.

THE TYPES OF PRESENT-DAY PSYCHOLOGISTS

Some reasons for the schism in psychology have been considered;
what are the branches of the science distinguishable today? Three
main groups, unlike in training, tradition, and practice, may be
differentiated.

(a) The first is that group of academic laboratory research
workers in the tradition of the university, possessing the Ph.D. and
generally referred to as psychologists. It is they who try to develop

THE TYPES OF PRESENT-DAY PSYCHOLOGISTS 9

the study of mind or behavior into a natural science. Their practical
experience is usually limited to the healthy subjects of their experi-
ments.

() The second group may be best characterized as depth psy-
chologists. By far the majority of this group is Freudian, either
orthodox or heterodox. There are others who recognize a great
debt to Freud, but would by no means be willing to fulfill the
requirements for becoming members of the inner circle. Then there
are followers of such offshoots of the Freudian trunk as Adler,
Jung, Rank, and Horney. Finally in this group must be included
members of the French school of Charcot and Janet.

It is difficult to make statements concerning this varied group
which will be true of every member, because the great comprehen-
siveness of the theories of these depth psychologists yields ambiguity
of position and much dissension. What is said of them must be with
the understanding that there are wide variations within the group.
Certainly such basic Freudian doctrines as repression, unconscious
processes, the importance of infantile events, and the life history
method are adhered to by a large part of this group. These men
hold the Ph.D. degree or the M.D. degree, or infrequently a lengthy
psychoanalysis may be the only professional qualification. Members
of this group are found both in the halls of the university and on
the wards of the hospital, though more in the latter place than in
the former. To a degree they unite the two other traditions.

One is justified in referring to the depth psychologists inclusively
as psychoanalysts because the Freudian contribution has been over-
whelmingly important. It has been the omnipresent point of refer-
ence for agreement, disagreement, and departure into new theory.
It has been observed 5 that until recent years one had to be either a
protagonist or an antagonist of the psychoanalytic theory in order
to discuss depth psychology; a disinterested person wielded little
influence. Freud himself recognized that he belonged, as he said, 6

8 S. Rosenzweig, The experimental study of psychoanalytic concepts, Character and Per-
sonality, 6, 1937, 61.

6 S. Freud, The Basic Writings of Sigmund Freud, ed. A. A. Brill, New York: Random
House, 1938 (The History of the Psychoanalytic Movement), 943. By permission of Random
House, Inc.

10 CLINIC AND LABORATORY

"to those who, according to HebbePs expression, 'have disturbed the
world's sleep.' " This evaluation has been corroborated by the sober
decision of many other disinterested judges. Freud, for instance,
has been said to have had a major part in the downfall of Vic-
torianism, 7 and in 1938 he was judged by a book reviewer in a
national news magazine 8 to have exerted a greater influence on
literature than anyone then living.

(c) The third group in the present psychological scene consists
of psychiatrists, neurologists, and neuropathologists. These scien-
tists usually prefer to deal with neural, glandular, or metabolic
disturbances. Only when an abnormality of behavior cannot yet be
explained physiologically do they turn, for want of anything else,
to psychoanalysis or psychology. Such men constitute the majority
of the non-Freudian psychiatrists and almost invariably have the
M.D. degree. Their medical orientation makes them more concerned
with disease than with healthy functioning of the normal indi-
vidual. Their interest in experimental neurophysiology, however,
is likely to make them more sympathetic with the laboratory than
are psychoanalysts.

These three groups have been playing intellectual tag with psycho-
logical problems. The game is a free-for-all, each side playing for
itself. Sometimes, on certain questions, two will side against the
third, and more rarely all three will be found agreeing.

G. Stanley Hall, a psychologist of the academic tradition, first
gave Freud international publicity by inviting him in 1909 to come
to America to lecture at Clark University. This co-operation of the
laboratory with psychoanalysis did not continue, but was followed
by a period of neglect or derogation of Freudian doctrines in aca-
demic circles. A statistical study by Brown of the writings of psy-
chologists shows 9 that the laboratory has only recently come to view
these doctrines with any favor or consideration, which is by no
means yet overwhelming.

7 G. W. Allport, The psychologist's frame of reference, Psychol. Bull., 37, 1940, 25.
B Timc, 31, 1938, No. 21, 61.

9 J. F. Brown, Freud's influence on American psychology, Psychoanal. Quart., 9, 1940,
283-92.

PRESENT CO-OPERATION OF CLINIC AND LABORATORY H

THE PRESENT DEGREE OF CO-OPERATION OF CLINIC
AND LABORATORY

A recent investigation of the literature of psychologists provides 10
an instructive commentary on their present isolation from psychia-
trists and psychoanalysts. The contents of the fourteen journals
which were listed by thirty academic psychologists as the most
significant for the advancement of psychology as science were
analyzed. No psychoanalytic periodicals were included. The survey
showed one thing that is of particular application to the problem of
this book, that the periodicals reflected an increasing loss of faith
in the causal efficacy of that standby of the clinic, "the unconscious."
Also indicated was a lessened interest in the subject matter of the
clinic, the single case. Furthermore a decline in the percentage of
contributions dealing with applied psychology had occurred. These
and other findings led to the conclusion that a professional cleavage
is developing between applied psychology and the science of the
laboratory.

Academic psychology has withdrawn from the clinic has the
clinic on its part neglected the laboratory? Psychoanalysis was en-
gendered in the clinic, and whether it can be fostered in the labora-
tory is not yet apparent. Sears stated 11 flatly that psychoanalytic
concepts can be examined experimentally only by psychoanalytic
techniques.

Brown made the following analysis of the situation, saying that
almost all critics of psychoanalysis agree that: 12

The theory has never been precise enough to allow formulation of
wording hypotheses for which adequate experimental situations could
be found. In his latest book \New Introductory Lectures] Freucl
himself seems to see this inadequacy. He hopes in the future to see
an experimental approach and reports as a beginning experiments
performed by Schrotter in connection with dream symbolism and

10 Cf. G. W. Allport, op. /., 1-28.

11 R. R. Sears, Functional abnormalities of memory with special reference to amnesia,
Psycho!. Bull., 33, 1936, 239.

32 J. F. Brown, Freud and the scientific method, Philos. Set., i, 1934, 333. By permission
of the Philosophy of Science.

12 CLINIC AND LABORATORY

others performed by Betlheim and Hartmann on Korsakoffs Psy-
chosis. . . . They represent an attack in the right direction, but I
believe few scientists would consider them critical experiments.

Rosenzweig believed, 13 in opposition to Sears and Brown, that
most of psychoanalytic theory is available to experimentation, though
he admitted that it might have to be redefined. An experience which
he related led him to question Freud's eagerness to subject his
findings to experimental analysis. He sent Freud some of his experi-
mental studies verifying psychoanalytic concepts. Freud replied
in substance that such work was interesting, but of little value,
because the wealth of reliable clinical observations on which his
system rests made it "independent of experimental verification."
He felt, however, that such verification "can do no harm." Though
many of his followers would not agree with this opinion of Freud's,
and he himself -may have changed his mind, the weight of evidence
and the dearth of experimental work by psychoanalysts seem to
show they do not feel that laboratory techniques can provide data
in any way more satisfactory than what they draw from their own
clinical procedures.

Not only psychoanalysis but also all of psychiatry has largely
eschewed the experimental method. It was found in one study 14
that only 0.8 per cent of textbooks in abnormal psychology were
devoted to experimental discoveries, and that psychiatry textbooks
were no better. Tabulations showed that, though experimentation
in abnormal psychology lags well behind research in other branches
of the science, there exists a body of experimental knowledge not
yet utilized to any extent by the authors of the textbooks.

Glimmerings of beginning co-operation between the clinic and
the laboratory have appeared, even though they have not yet reached
the sluggard textbook writers. As Brown noted, here and there in
his writings Freud referred 15 to experiments which he considered

18 S. Rosenzweig, op. tit., 65.

14 W. A. Hunt and C. Landis, The present status of abnormal psychology, Psychol. Rev.,
42, 1935, 83-9.

15 Cf-, e.g., S. Freud, op at. (The Interpretation of Dreams), 386; also S. Freud, New In-
troductory Lectures in Psycho- Analysis, New York: Norton, 1933, 36-8.

PRESENT CO-OPERATION OF CLINIC AND LABORATORY 13

significant, but which are usually roughly performed with many
variables neglected. Fragmentary experiments on real and artificial
dreams have been described, 16 and a questionnaire study on foster-
child fantasy has been made. 17 All these moves toward rapproche-
ment have originated in the clinic. An almost unique example of
where a clinician has made practical use of an important experi-
mental finding is the employment of word association to discover
complexes in psychoanalysis. Freud said of this work in his history
of the psychoanalytic movement: 18

The association experiment, started by the Wunclt School, had been
interpreted by them (Jung and others] in the psychoanalytic sense
and had proved itself useful in unexpected ways. Thus, it had be-
come possible to get rapid experimental confirmation of psycho-
analytic facts, and to demonstrate experimentally to beginners certain
relationships which the analyst would only have been able to talk
about. The first bridge leading from experimental psychology to
psychoanalysis had thus been constructed.

All the bridge-building has not been done by clinicians, for more
and more in recent years experimentation in the academic labora-
tory has been directed toward the problems of the psychiatrist and
psychoanalyst. 19 This work is not well known to the clinic, and
many of its significant implications are neglected by the laboratory.
Throughout this book much research of this sort will be discussed.
Manufactured neuroses, artificial analogues of regression, frustration
in rats, the correlation of glandular activity and psychodynamic
processes, motor components of anxiety these are examples of
topics recently investigated. The rapprochement of the laboratory
and the clinic is not yet a large, a self-conscious, or a vocal move-
ment, but it has begun.

16 Cf. J. C. Flugel, in Psychologies of 1930, cd. C. Murchison, Worcester: Clark Uni-
versity Press, 1930, 394.

17 Cf. Ibid.

18 S. Freud, The Basic Writings of Sigmund Freud (The History of the Psychoanalytic
Movement), 948. By permission of Random House, Inc.

19 J. McV. Hunt, in Psychological experiments with disordered persons, Psychol. #//., 33,
1936, 1-58, was able to publish a 2io-titlc bibliography illustrating this rapprochement.

14 CLINIC AND LABORATORY

PROSPECT OF CO-ORDINATING THE BRANCHES OF
PSYCHOLOGY

An illustration of how the co-ordination of the fields of the psycho-
logical science may progress can be drawn from the medical
sciences. In the education of medical students thorough grounding
in laboratory sciences is required preclinical training. There is no
parallel to this in the preparation of psychological clinicians. It is
exceptional for one of them to have more than one desultory course
in the experimental psychology, whether he be doctor, mental hy-
gienist, occupational therapist, or psychiatric social worker. It is
even more unusual for him to know what the psychological labora-
tory is doing.

In the practice of medicine the place of the laboratory has assumed
important proportions. It is rare for a patient in a hospital not to
have a series of laboratory examinations beginning immediately
after admission and continuing throughout his illness. Many diag-
noses which doctors could not make in the last century are possible
today only through laboratory procedures, often expensive and com-
plicated. These techniques are based on a thorough understanding
of the chemical and physiological functions of the human being
determined by investigation in the tradition of the natural sciences.
Academic psychology has to its credit thousands of comparable
experiments which have succeeded in sketching vaguely the out-
lines of some types of human behavior. Almost none of this body
of fact has been applied to diagnosis and treatment, or correlated
with clinical data to make more adequate the description of human
behavior. In the clinic the psychologist docs little more than ad-
minister the standardized tests of intelligence, aptitudes, abilities,
and traits which are at present practically his only contribution to
the study of the patient.

It has frequently occurred in the medical sciences that long after
a drug has been empirically discovered to be effective as in the
case of many of the herb remedies learned from witch doctors the
laboratory scientist has not only determined the active principle of
the drug, but also discovered the mechanism of its therapeutic

THE PURPOSE OF THIS BOOK 15

effect upon the cells of the body. These discoveries have often led to
further advances in therapy by related methods. Similarly in the
laboratory the psychologist should be able to make carefully con-
trolled studies of therapeutic procedures which have been used in
the clinic, and be able to determine wherein their efficacy lies. Such
studies would be provocative of further discoveries in the psycho-
logical sciences.

In medicine the man engaged in research is alert to find implica-
tions of his work which will apply to practical problems of the
clinician, if indeed his investigations were not begun to answer
some such question. As the death rate from cancer rises the study
of cancer becomes more intense. The problems of laboratory psy-
chology, however, rarely have application to the problems of
neurosis and psychosis. The research worker in most cases has
insufficient contact with the practicing psychiatrist or psychoanalyst
to know what questions he wants answered, and he frequently and
naturally follows his predecessors into the intricacies of sensation,
perception, or learning, which are the only problems of which he
is aware. When the student about to begin his research for the
doctorate in psychology can have means of discovering what is still
unknown about obsessional neuroses or the treatment of tics as
easily as he learns what is not yet certain regarding the perception
of vertical distance, the alliance of experimental and applied in
psychology will be well on the way toward their efficient relation-
ship in medicine.

THE PURPOSE OF THIS BOOK

In the chapters of this book is outlined for the clinician the kind
of work done by the psychological laboratory to throw light upon
one of the important problems of his work unconsciousness and
to sketch for the experimentalist the sort of dilemmas in this field
with which the clinician is faced and the kind of investigations he
desires to have carried out. Unconsciousness has been chosen as the
illustrative case because it is important to all branches of the science.
It is, however, only one of many skeins which clinic and laboratory
can join forces to liAravel.

CHAPTER I
DEFINITIONS AND CRITERIA OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

Early in this century William James, who so often reflected the
future of psychology, said 1 that the discovery that memories,
thoughts, and feelings exist outside the primary consciousness was
"the most important step forward that has occurred in psychology
since I have been a student of that science." Several years before
that Lipps had told an international psychological conference 2 that
he considered the question of unconsciousness less a problem than
the problem of psychology. The mazes of unconsciousness have
been ever more assiduously traveled in the years since these two
men spoke.

Another time, at the end of the last century, James wore the
prophet's mantle, seeing the hidden lures to nonsense and dogma-
tism in the distinction between conscious and unconscious processes,
when he said: 3 "It is the sovereign means for believing what one
likes in psychology, and of turning what might become a science
into a tumbling-ground for whimsies." A tumbling-ground for
whimsies unconsciousness has been glibly resorted to in order to
explain such varied phenomena and fantasies as the return of the
spirits of the dead, the artistic skill of Paganini, and the rise of
modern cities.

Unconscious processes have been subjected to a wide and fascinat-
ing variety of misinterpretations. He who investigates these processes
may never allow himself to forget entirely the remarkable admoni-
tion which appears in that section of the White Mountain Guide

1 W. James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, New York: Longmans, Green, 1902,
233. By permission of Longmans, Green and Company.

2 T. Lipps, Der Begnff des Unbewussten in der Psychologic, in Drifter Internationaler
Congress fur Psychologic , Munchcn: Lchmann, 1897, 147.

S W. James, The Principles of Psychology, London: Macmillan, 1890, I, 163. By per-
mission of Henry Holt and Company.

A MAZE OF MEANINGS 17

that discusses emergencies in the woods, such as sprains, fractures,
etc.: 4 "Unconsciousness, it need hardly be said, may be very serious."

A MAZE OF MEANINGS

Voltaire would not discuss until he had defined his terms, and
we may not consider the problems which surround the term uncon-
scious without determining what its significances are. It has been
said r> that " 'the Unconscious' has been the occasion for a greater
flood of more abject nonsense than any other psychological concept,
with the possible exception of 'Instinct'." Bernard has distinguished
a large number of uses of the word instinct, and since his work
psychologists in general have become aware of the pitfalls surround-
ing the word, and have learned to be particularly careful when using
it, or even better to substitute other more exact words. At least one
reformer 7 has attempted to isolate the various significances of the
term unconscious. This effort was philosophical in character, and
because it involved assumptions that few present-day American
psychologists, academic, psychoanalytic, or psychiatric, would be
willing to accept, its usefulness is limited.

An instructive example of the facility with which the meaning
of unconscious may be bent back upon itself like a pretzel can be
found in the considered statement of a prominent psychoanalyst
at a recent seminar. The Freudians have popularized the term, and,
if anyone does, they should know how to use it properly. This man,
however, said that the novelist Herman Melville, like other inspired
artists, "was on speaking terms with his unconscious." Apparently
this, being interpreted, means that he was conscious of his uncon-
scious. It has been remarked 8 that this conception of unconscious,
is strangely similar to Herbert Spencer's Unknowable, of which
he appeared to know so much. It is common for psychologists of

* The A.M.C. White Mountain Guide, 9th cd., Boston: Appalachian Mountain Club,
1934, 530.

5 C. D. Broad, The Mind and Its Place in Nature, New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1925, 353.

6 L. L. Bernard, Instinct, New York: Holt, 1924, i22ff.

7 C. D. Broad, op. cit., 353-477.

8 E. B. Holt, The Freudian Wish, New York: Holt, 1915, 179.

18 DEFINITIONS AND CRITERIA OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

other credos to slip into this error that it is possible to develop
subjective familiarity with unconscious processes. Indeed Freud
once noted 9 that certain of his opponents did not comprehend that
one can never know directly the contents of "the unconscious."

Throughout the following chapters, the peculiar problems of the
classical question of consciousness will be evaded as far as is possible,
and certainly no attempt will be made to consider with any ade-
quacy the many past and current doctrines of consciousness. It will
be impossible to neglect the fact, however, that unconsciousness is,
etymologically as well as for many theoretical and practical pur-
poses, the negative of consciousness. For instance, in Chapter IV
the evidence on the localization of consciousness in the body has to
be investigated before the localization of unconsciousness can be
determined, by a kind of subtractive procedure. In the present chap-
ter we shall find that several meanings of unconscious have been
derived, because of the etymological relationship, from theoretical
beliefs about the nature of consciousness.

It has been said 10 that no philosophical term is at once so popular
and so devoid of standard meaning as consciousness; and the lay-
man's usage of the term has been credited 11 with begging as many
metaphysical questions as will probably ever be the privilege of
any single word. Both these observations were made early in the
century, and the term has since then had more than thirty years to
amass confusions.

It is remarkable, in the light of this recognized ambiguity, that
Freud, hastening on to the exposition of his theory of unconscious
processes, said in his New Introductory Lectures? 2 "What is meant
by 'conscious/ we need not discuss; it is beyond all doubt." This
statement is no less singular than Washburn's comment: 13 "Every

S. Freud, The Basic Writings of Sigmtind Freud, ed. A. A. Brill, New York: Random
House, 1938 (Wit and Its Relation to the Unconscious), 747.

10 R. B. Perry, Conceptions and misconceptions of consciousness, Psychol. Rev., 11,
1904, 282.

11 J. Dewey, The terms 'conscious' and 'consciousness/ /. P/nlos., Psychol., and Set.
Methods, 3, 1906, 41.

12 S. Freud, New Introductory Lecttites on Psycho-Analysis, New York: Norton, 1933, 99.

13 M. F. Washburn, Movement and Mental Imagery, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1916, 17.

OTHER COMPOUNDS OF CONSCIOUS BESIDES UNCONSCIOUS 19

one knows what is meant when it is said that a man is unconscious.
He is neither awake, aware of the sights and sounds of the outer
world, nor dreaming, aware of images that are the product of his
own fancy." The fog of ambiguity which has surrounded conscious-
ness has now also enveloped unconsciousness, and it cannot be
dispelled by saying it is not there.

OTHER COMPOUNDS OF CONSCIOUS BESIDES UNCONSCIOUS

In psychological writings one finds, besides unconscious, other
words formed by compounding prefixes with conscious sub-
conscious, preconscious, joreconscious, coconscious, and supercon-
scious.

Subconscious. It is difficult to discover any distinction between
subconscious and unconscious which has received general agree-
ment; however, if a person did not respond to stimulation because
ether or a blow on the head had affected the function of his nervous
system, he would almost always be termed unconscious rather than
subconscious. Another common usage is that Freudians, who talk
of instinctual and repressed processes, call them unconscious in
translation of the German unbewusst while Prince, Janet, and
those in the tradition of the French school, who deal with dis-
sociated processes, multiple personalities, and so forth, call them
subconscious.

Subconscious has been used by some 11 to refer to what is in the
margin of attention, what is dimly conscious. Prince considered
unconsciousness to be one sort of subconsciousness. He said: 15 "I
. . . use the term subconscious in a generic sense to include (a) co-
conscious ideas or processes; (b) unconscious neurograms; and (c)
unconscious processes." Unconscious neurograms are for Prince
neural characteristics capable of regulating behavior in the future,
while unconscious processes actively determine present behavior.

Super-conscious. Subconscious is sometimes used as the opposite of
super conscious. These adjectives then characterize the two parts

14 Cf. B. Hart, Psychopathology, New York: Macmillan, 1927, 58.

16 M. Prince, The Unconscious, New York: Macmillan, 1929, 2cl cd. rev., 253.

20 DEFINITIONS AND CRITERIA OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

of a continuous series of degrees of consciousness, the subconscious
part being below and the superconscious part above a conscious
level. Psychoanalytic theory has always been strongly opposed to
any such doctrine of continuity, insisting on an important distinc-
tion, more than any difference of degree, between what is con-
scious and what is not. 10 As Freud viewed it, the unconscious moti-
vations of behavior are entirely cut off from consciousness and can
never become conscious. However: 17 "It is by no means impossible
for the product of unconscious activity to pierce into consciousness,
but a certain amount of exertion is needed for this task."

Preconscious and foreconscious. These are psychoanalytic terms
used synonymously. Freud said: 18

There are . . . two tynds of unconscious, which have not as yet
been distinguished by psychologists. Both are unconscious in the
psychological sense; but in our sense the first, which we call Ucs.
[Unconscious], is likewise incapable of consciousness \ whereas the
second we call PCS. [ Preconscious J because its excitations, after the
observance of certain rules, are capable of reaching consciousness;
perhaps not before they have again undergone censorship, but never-
theless regardless of the Ucs. system. . . . We described the relations
of the two systems to each other and to consciousness by saying
that the system PCS. is like a screen between the system Ucs. and
consciousness.

Coconscious. Prince interested himself in his fascinating cases of
multiple personality, such as Miss Beauchamp (cf. pp. 64-65), in
which a single individual appeared to have several different per-
sonalities. Largely to explain this sort of psychopathology, Prince
referred 19 to a coconscious state, a coexisting dissociated conscious-
ness (another personality) of which the personality in control of
the body may not be aware. It was Prince's belief that to call such
coconscious states simply unconscious, as others did, so making
them appear like other unconscious processes, is inadequate. He

18 Cf. S. Freud, The Basic Writings of Sigmund Trend (The Interpretation of Dreams), 544.

17 S. Freud, A note on the unconscious in psycho-analysis, Proceedings Soc. Psychical
Research, 26, 1912, 316. By permission of the Society for Psychical Research.

18 S. Freud, The Basic Writings of Sigmund Freud (The Interpretation of Dreams), 544.
By permission of Random House, Inc

19 M. Prince, op. cit., 249.

SIXTEEN MEANINGS OF UNCONSCIOUS 21

pictured the individuals with multiple personalities to be like the
weather-forecasting houses with the little man who comes out
when it is going to rain and the little lady who comes out when it
is to be fair. When one comes out the other goes in ; neither affects
the other. In like manner the multiple personalities are independ-
ent when one is conscious, the other is coconscious. Those who
disagreed with Prince insisted that one action system is uncon-
scious and affects the other, conscious one. They suggested that the
little old man and lady are only one person a quick-change artist.

SIXTEEN MEANINGS OF UNCONSCIOUS

Sixteen specifically different meanings of the word unconscious
which may be found in psychological writings are defined and dis-
cussed below. Certain of these senses of the word unconscious must
be subdivided. Considered with most of the definitions are one or
more objective criteria which may be employed to determine the
presence or absence of unconsciousness in the sense defined.

In Chapter IV and thereafter, whenever the word unconscious is
used on the author's authority, it is followed in parentheses by a
phrase in SMALL CAPITALS to indicate which of these meanings is
intended. The phrases which will be used are those in SMALL
CAPITALS in the definitions of this chapter, (e.g., INANIMATE or
SUBHUMAN for Definition i). To evade the present great confusion
in the use of the word unconscious it would be well in scientific
writing to substitute for it these or similar phrases which represent
accurately the precise meaning.

The adjective unconscious may be used to refer to an individual,
as: "Oliver Wendell Holmes found that he rapidly became uncon-
scious when inhaling ether." Or it may refer to the actions, ideas,
emotions, needs, or drives of an individual, as in the sentence:
"Mankind has an inherited and unconscious fear of snakes, but
Mark Antony had better reason for such an unconscious fear than
most men."

Unconscious in the senses of the first two definitions may refer

22 DEFINITIONS AND CRITERIA OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

to the individual only, and not to his actions, ideas, emotions, needs,
or drives.

DEFINITION 1

<* Unconscious = IN ANIMATE or SUBHUMAN, incapable of discrimi-
nating or behaving.

Anything that is incapable of discriminating or behaving under
any conditions whatsoever is unconscious in this meaning of the
word. The inanimate pearl is unconscious in this sense, but the
oyster is conscious. Koffka used nonconscious to convey this mean-
ing. He wrote:"

The unconscious as a systematic concept is not synonymous with
the non-conscious. Rather does the existence of an unconscious pre-
suppose the existence, potential or actual, of a conscious. The move-
ments of a stone are not called unconscious, whereas those of an
amoeba might be. The unconscious then is something which is not
yet or no more conscious, but which may become conscious.

Though Koflfka was wrong in saying that the movements of a
stone are not called unconscious, for the word has frequently been
used that way, it is important that he made the distinction between
unconscious and nonconscious. He entangled himself, however, in
a difficult question when he suggested that there is a difference
between an amoeba and a stone. Behaviorists have insisted that
discrimination between stimuli be the criterion of consciousness
(cf. Definition 4, pp. 26-28), and it has even been suggested 21 that
the movement of iron filings toward a magnet is conscious in this
sense. There is nothing in the behavior of a moving stone that
would make the rock appear less conscious than the amoeba, accord-
ing to this criterion.

Koffka said the amoeba may move unconsciously, but he insisted
that it is capable of becoming conscious. How he knew this he did
not say. Since the behavior of the amoeba is like that of the iron
filings, except that it discriminates more stimuli, and, since the

20 K. KofTka, in C. M. Child ct al., The Unconscious: A Symposium, New York: Knopf,
1929, 43. By permission of F. S. Crofts and Company.

21 E. G. Boring, A psychological function is the relation of successive differentiations
of events in the organism, Psychol. Rev. t 44, 1937, 456.

DEFINITION 2 23

amoeba cannot introspect, it is difficult to know how he found out.
We see here that until animals learn to introspect and communicate,
any beliefs about their consciousness, unconsciousness, or noncon-
sciousness resembling or differing from conditions in the inanimate
world must be founded upon the uncertainties of analogy to human
beings.

This use of unconscious, with its dangerous implications, will be
of no further importance to our considerations.

DEFINITION 2

Unconscious ABSENT-MINDED, DAY-DREAMING, ANESTHETIZED, etc.,

UNRESPONSIVE TO STIMULATION.

A person is unconscious in this sense when he is in one of the
states in which the stimuli of the external environment are not
affecting his behavior, or in which he does not show normal reac-
tion to or discrimination of these stimuli. An individual in such a
state is sometimes loosely said, in terms making the popular assump-
tion of free will, to have lost, partially or completely, control of his
body. Such conditions exist during absent-mindedness, reverie, un-
consciousness from concussion or other physical injury, fainting,
comas, trances, hypnosis, sleep, the hypnagogic state (just at wak-
ing), and dream states (in sleep and epilepsy). Each of these con-
ditions has characteristic subjective and objective aspects, and a host
of physiological and psychological determinants. There are impor-
tant differences, for instance, between coma and reverie. For clarity,
therefore, it is advisable to use the specific name for the state rather
than the general description unconscious.

The determinants of these various states are of many sorts. Sub-
jectively, being in a faint is much different from being under hyp-^
nosis. Moreover, the physiology of the first condition is much less
imperfectly known than that of the second.

Introspective report tells us, however, that subjectively these
various states merge into one another gradually e.g., waking into
reverie into sleep, or waking into hypnosis into dreaming sleep.
We have in this sense a continuity of imperceptible gradations be-
tween consciousness and unconsciousness. Furthermore, these states

24 DEFINITIONS AND CRITERIA OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

are all objectively alike in that, to a greater or less degree, the indi-
vidual in them is less responsive to stimulation than normally.

The objective criterion indicating any of the states of unconscious-
ness which we have been considering is whether the individual
responds to stimulation. Absence of any response or of the normally
occurring response is the index of unconsciousness in the sense most
frequently used by the medical profession as well as by the layman.
Some of the rough tests commonly employed are maintenance of
upright posture, response to questioning, reaction to painful stimuli,
"voluntary" motion, proper reaction to the entire environment.
Alford, in discussing his study of the neural localization of con-
sciousness, referred specifically to this criterion: 22

The criterion chosen for consciousness was the ordinary psychiatric
one, namely, a state of "awareness" or alertness to surroundings.
Disturbance of consciousness is shown by "confusion" and disori-
entation. This limitation of the criterion both simplifies observation
and eliminates controversy over what is included under the more
extensive conceptions of psychologists and philosophers. For the sake
of interest, however, one hopes there are affiliations between the two
viewpoints. I have tested and retested the validity of this criterion
during these two years and have found it workable and essentially
accurate.

The states of unconsciousness characterized by unresponsiveness
to stimulation are analyzed in Chapter V.

One sense of the word unconscious describes only actions, ideas,
emotions, needs, or drives of an individual, and does not refer to
the individual himself. This is the following usage.

DEFINITION 3

Unconscious = NOT MENTAL.

The philosophical meaning of consciousness, as defined by Web-
ster' Dictionary, is: "That state of being which is characterized by
sensation, emotion, thought, or any psychical attribute whatever;
mind in the broadest possible sense; that in nature which is distin-

22 L. B. Alford, Localization of consciousness and emotion, Amer. /. Psychiat., 12, 1933,
790. By permission of the American Journal of Psychiatry.

DEFINITION 3 25

guished from the physical." The wide acceptance by philosophers
of this sense of the word consciousness has been the origin of the
greatest dispute which has raged about the notion of unconscious-
ness. The argument has been (and it is still propounded by certain
English philosophers) that if consciousness is mentality, then un-
consciousness can have none of the characteristics which philos-
ophers associate with mind. Therefore any mention of "unconscious
ideas" is decried as referring to "unconscious consciousness," which
one of the English philosophers 23 has considered as self-contradictory
as the postulation of "cannibals in all respects except the act of
devouring the flesh of the victims." After this fashion the Freudian
attitudes toward unconscious processes have frequently been
attacked. 24

A good example of this equation of mental and conscious is
Miinsterberg's statement:"

There is thus no reason to conceive a psychical fact existing out-
side of consciousness, and that corresponds to the only significant
meaning of consciousness. Consciousness is nothing which can be
added to the existing mental facts, but it indicates just the existence
of the psychical phenomena. Consciousness cannot do anything, can-
not look here and there and shine on some ideas and leave others
without illumination. No, consciousness means merely the logical
relation point of its contents; the psychical phenomena are in con-
sciousness as the physical phenomena are in nature; there cannot be
physical phenomena outside of nature.

Freud continually attacked such conceptions of consciousness and
unconsciousness. He realized that his references to various uncon-
scious mental processes were illogical if mind and consciousness were
equated, but he insisted 26 that the difficulty is verbal, for he meant
something else by conscious and unconscious (cf. Definition 15,

23 J. Laird, in G. C. Field, F. Avcling, and J. Laird, Is the conception of the unconscious
of value in psychology?, Mind, 31, 1922, 434-5.
2 *E.g., C. D. Broad, op. at., 356 ff.

25 H. Munsterberg, m H. Munstcrbcrg et a/., Subconscious Phenomena, Boston: Badger,
1910, 29.

26 S. Freud, A note on the unconscious in psycho-analysis, Proceedings Soc. Psychical Re-
search, 26, 1912, 312.

26 DEFINITIONS AND CRITERIA OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

pp. 42-43). He believed that it begs the question to assert that
conscious and psychical are identical terms.

The meanings of unconscious distinguished by our Definitions 3
and 15 continue to be confused by many psychological theorists,
however, and implications of this fact are considered in future
chapters.

Most uses of unconscious may refer either to the individual or to
his actions, ideas, emotions, needs, or drives. This is true of the rest
of the usages to be defined in this chapter.

DEFINITION 4

Unconscious- (applied to the individual) UNDISCRIMINATING;
(applied to his actions) UNDISCRIMINATING.

Behaviorists have insisted that a person is conscious in the sense
that has any objective, observable meaning only when his behavior
indicates that he can discriminate between two or more stimuli.
Then unconscious can mean only that such discrimination is not
being made. Boring stated this position: 27

Discrimination is the psychical function of the organism. It is the
criterion of mind, of consciousness, of knowing. Animals, children
and irresponsible adults are recognized as conscious only as and in
as far as they discriminate, that is to say, as they react differentially
(discriminatorily) to a differentiated situation. . . . Even the "im-
mediate, private experience" of introspection can be defined only
operationally, and the operation which indicates its existence is dif-
ferential reaction.

Behind all these definitions of unconscious which we are consider-
ing is a basic sense of unaware (cf. Definition 16, pp. 43-44) derived
from the subjective experience of all who use the word. The experi-
ence of awareness is private, and these definitions indicate various
circumstances under which it has been believed that this awareness
does not exist (for instance, Definition 2 says it is not present when
the individual is unresponsive to stimulation). Psychologists who
reduce the subject matter of their science to objectively observable

27 E. G. Boring, op. cit., 450. By permission of the Psychological Review.

DEFINITION 4 27

behavior have insisted that the presence or absence of this subjective
awareness is a private affair not available to public science, and
that the only behavioral differentiation between consciousness and
unconsciousness must be based on the presence or absence of dis-
crimination. Definition 4 is, therefore, the basic sense of unconscious
for psychologists relying solely on objective observation, while
Definition 16 represents the basic sense for those who will accept
subjective report.

A criterion of unconsciousness in the sense of this definition is
that if an individual does not discriminate between two stimuli he
is unconscious of the difference between them, and, if he does not
discriminate the presence of a stimulus from its absence, he is un-
conscious of that stimulus. Moreover, if the stimulus has been pre-
sented to the individual under question and he has not reacted to
it, but then he finally does respond to it, he has been unconscious
of it until then.

Tolman has written: 28 "Wherever an organism at a given moment
of stimulation shifts then and there from being ready to respond
in some relatively less differentiated way to being ready to respond
in some relatively more differentiated way, there is consciousness."

Chapters XII and XIII deal with the obvious difficulty involved
in this criterion, that it may be possible for a person to discriminate
between two stimuli and not give any behavioral evidence of the fact.

A second criterion of unconsciousness in this same sense is the
impossibility of developing conditioned responses. When a stimulus
like a piece T)f steak is put before a dog, he responds to it by salivat-
ing. If a bell is rung ten seconds before the dog is fed every day, he
finally becomes so conditioned that he begins to salivate to the bell.
This is a conditioned response. If this does not occur, one may say,
by the present criterion, that the dog is unconscious of the bell.

Pavlov believed 29 that the cerebral cortex of the animal must
function if conditioning is to occur. It has been commonly held that
consciousness is located in the cortex. These two beliefs have given

28 E. C. Tolman, A bchaviorist's definition of consciousness, PsychoL Rev., 34, 1927, 435.

29 I. P. Pavlov, Conditioned Reflexes, trans. G. V. Anrep, Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1927, 330.

28 DEFINITIONS AND CRITERIA OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

rise to the equation of consciousness and conditioning, and to the
further assumption that, if conditioning cannot be developed in a
given part of the nervous system, the processes going on in that
region are unconscious. When conditioning was achieved in
Pavlov's dogs, which salivated when the bell was rung before they
were to be fed, it was possible to tell if they were conscious of the
bell (could discriminate it) by finding whether they salivated. This
technique has been used extensively in animal psychology 30 for
instance to discover how soft a bell a dog can hear, and what is the
intensity below which he is unconscious (in the sense of Definition
4) that the bell has rung.

The use to which this conditioned-response criterion has been
put in the attempt to localize consciousness in the nervous system
is considered in Chapter IV.

DEFINITION 5

Unconscious- (applied to an individual) CONDITIONED, acting
sheerly on the basis of conditioning; (applied to his actions, emo-
tions, etc.) CONDITIONED, merely conditioned responses.

Frequently statements can be found implying that, since condi-
tioned-response formation is usually interpreted in physiological
terms, for instance as an alteration of neural pathways, it is uncon-
scious, because it is not mental but purely physiological. Behavior is
often explained by clinicians and theorists in terms of conditioning
which occurred in infancy, and it is often assumed that this is
unconscious because it occurred at the purely physiological level.

We find implications of such a position in Murphy, Murphy, and
Newcomb's discussion of the way neighboring katydids imitate
the chirping of one another. 31 These writers distinguished (a)
imitation of conditioned response type, () imitation after a trial-
and-error period, and (c) deliberate imitation, and then proceeded
to say: 32

80 E. Culler, G. Finch, E. Girden, and W. Bragden, Measurements of acuity by the
conditioned -response technique, /. Gen. PsychoL, 12, 1935, 223-7.

81 G. Murphy, L. B. Murphy, and T. M. Newcomb, Experimental Social Psychology,
rev. ed., New York: Harper, 1937, 180-3.

* 2 lbid., 181. By permission of Harper & Brothers.

DEFINITION 6 29

In the first of these, the behavior which is called imitative is strictly
a conditioned response to a fairly simple and easily describable stimu-
lus; the animal does not know that it is imitating, and the fact that
the behavior "imitates" or duplicates the behavior of some other
animal necessitates no psychological principles other than those al-
ready described in connection with the conditioned response.

This statement appears to mean that because the imitation of the
animal is strictly conditioned-response behavior, it is unconscious
that it is imitating. Presumably if the imitation had been of the
third type mentioned, deliberate, some other psychological prin-
ciple more "mental" than a physiological conditioned response
would have been required to explain it.

Lurking close to the sense of unconscious of the present Defini-
tion 5 is usually found the assumption that what is mental is con-
scious and what is nonmental is unconscious, the assumption of
Definition 3. Moreover this use of unconscious is surrounded by
more than a faint aura of a doctrine which has wrought much
havoc in psychology, that mentality is something over and above
physiological processes, sometimes accompanying them and some-
times not.

It is obvious that this sense of unconscious is directly contradictory
to that of Definition 4, the second criterion of which depends upon
the assumption that consciousness is conditioned responses.

DEFINITION 6

Unconscious^ (applied to an individual) UNSENSING; (applied to
his actions, emotions, needs, drives, etc.) UNSENSED.

Several subsidiary cases in which this usage of unconscious may
be employed are listed below.

(a) STIMULI NOT REACHING ORGANISM. Bassanio in The Merchant
of Venice was unconscious of which casket gold, silver, or lead
contained the permission to marry Portia, and in this forced uncon-
sciousness lay the drama.

() INADEQUATE STIMULI AFFECTING ORGANISM. If the energy of

the stimulus does not reach the sense receptor which it can affect,
the individual will be unconscious of it. Throw a light into some-

30 DEFINITIONS AND CRITERIA OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

one's ear, and, if none of the light reaches an eye, he will not be
conscious of it.

tract, for instance, certain drugs, bacterial or virus infections,
pressure on the optic nerve, or a cataract of the lens may cause blind-
ness and unconsciousness of one aspect of the environment.

(d) SUBLIMINAL STIMULI AFFECTING ORGANISM. A Stimulus mUSt

be of a certain intensity in order to be conveyed along a neurone.
If it is below this threshold intensity (i.e. f if it is subliminal), it will
be insufficient to cause a nervous impulse to pass along the neurone
and the organism will be unconscious of it. The passenger leaning
over the rail as the ship departs sees his friends on the dock waving
and sees their lips moving, but he hears no sound of their shouted
farewells. The threshold or limen is not always exactly the same,
but varies with innumerable physiological factors. It must therefore
be treated statistically, and determined, for example, by taking the
average of one hundred trials.

In Chapter IX we consider forgetful unconsciousness, which
includes amnesias of impression, in which someone appears to have
forgotten something which he really never had an opportunity to
perceive adequately. He is unconscious of it because he never sensed
it, on account of one of the situations mentioned in this Definition
6, cases (a) to (d).

Sears mentioned three criteria which show that the impression
originally received was adequate: 33

(a) The fact of immediate recall of the experience before amnesia
develops (as in the amnesias of murderers, or victims of dual per-
sonality); () eventual recall spontaneously or by aid of special
methods (as with hypnosis, distraction, chloroform, emotional shock,
or free association) ; and (c) agreement by competent observers that
the external conditions were sufficient to provide an impression. The
last criterion may be easily abused; perception depends on internal
conditions as well as external and no observer is competent to judge
the former as adequate.

S3 R. R. Scars, Functional abnormalities of memory with special reference to amnesia,
Psychol. Bull., 33, 1936, 232. By permission of the Psychological Bulletin.

DEFINITION 6 31

In some cases it is possible to use criterion (r) with a good deal of
certainty. If Bassanio had never opened any of the caskets and later
could not tell what was in them, that would not be amnesia. He
would be unconscious of the contents because he had never sensed
them. It is certain (barring clairvoyance and telepathy) that if the
stimuli could not reach Bassanio, he was unconscious of what was
in the caskets.

Similarly, criteria of unconsciousness can be derived from the
other cases considered under this Definition 6. A particularly useful
one is that if the stimuli are found to be subliminal they are uncon-
scious. This criterion has been so important in experimental work
that all of Chapter VI is devoted to it.

((?) STIMULI NOT REACHING THE CORTEX (OR THE "SEAT OF AWARE-

NESS" OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM). If physical violence, a tumor, or
some other agency has functionally separated the highest level of
the nervous system (usually assumed to be the cortex) from lower
levels, the upper integrating mechanism may not be affected by
stimuli which enter the central nervous system in the region of the
spinal cord, or even the medulla or midbrain. Such a patient is then
referred to as being unconscious, much as if the higher centers had
temporarily stopped functioning under anesthesia.

While incidentally lured close to indiscretion by the intriguing
question of animal consciousness, Jones and Porteus referred to
subcortical activity as largely unconscious: 34

Even the lowliest animal with the simplest kind of structure must
have at least some germ of consciousness but this is almost certain
to be no more than a sense of aliveness, or flashes of what we may
call awareness. But without a cortex and cortical memory there could
hardly be any continuity or connection between these flashes, no"
stream of activity or flow of consciousness.

A statement by Freud on consciousness indicates that he believed
that there is a "scat of awareness" which perceives some mental
processes but not others. He said 35 that consciousness appears to be

84 F. W. Jones and S. D. Porteus, The Matrix of the Mind, Honolulu: University of

Hawaii Press Assn., 1928, 414-5. By permission of the University of Hawaii Press Association.

35 S. Freud, The Basic Writings of Sigmund Freud (The Interpretation of Dreams),

32 DEFINITIONS AND CRITERIA OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

like a sensory organ perceiving a content that comes from another
source. This may be interpreted in neurological terms as meaning
that the neural system mediating consciousness has a higher threshold
than lower centers controlling other activities, producing the "con-
tent proceeding from another source."

A criterion of unconsciousness in this sense (e) is perhaps pre-
sented by the electroencephalogram. There is some evidence 30 that
differences in cortical activity, as between waking and sleeping, are
reflected in the "brain waves."

Another criterion of unconsciousness in the sense of this Defini-
tion 6 is surprise. In later chapters it is demonstrated that whenever
stimuli which were available to someone but had not been reaching
the highest intcgrativc level of his nervous system, and hence were
not sensed by him, suddenly reach that level, he shows surprise
behavior. This indicates that up to then he had been unconscious,
by Definition 6, of these stimuli. This is a most useful criterion.

DEFINITION 7

Unconscious- (applied to an individual) UNNOTICING or UN-
ATTENDING; (applied to his actions, ideas, emotions, needs, drives,

etC.) UNNOTICED Or UNATTENDED.

You have been watching an exciting baseball game intently when
suddenly you notice that a large thunderhead has crept up from
nowhere and a storm is threatened in what had been a cloudless
day. The cloud is now well within your range of vision, the shadows
of trees have disappeared, it is noticeably darker, and die thunder
rumbles in the distance, but until the inning was over these facts
were in the periphery of your attention in the sense of this present
definition you were unconscious of them. Pillsbury, writing on
attention in 1908, showed that some writers then equated conscious-
ness and attention (and hence unconsciousness and inattention): 37

The . . . last theory of attention which we must consider is repre-

36 E.g., H. Davis and P. A. Davis, Action potentials of the brain, Arch. Neural, and
Psychiat., 36, 1936, 1214-24.

37 W. B. Pillsbury, Attention^ New York: Macmillan, 1908, 292. By permission of The
Macmillan Company, publishers.

DEFINITION 7 33

scnted by Kohn, and is to the effect that attention and consciousness
are identical. This is not far different from the conclusion that we
have reached, in so far as it must be admitted that attention is in-
volved in all consciousness, and that degree of attention and degree
of consciousness amount to the same thing.

This position is by no means a doctrine of the past, for it or a
similar belief is still propounded. For instance Boring wrote in
1933 : 38 "Consciousness is attentive; attention is selective; conscious-
ness is selective. Attention and consciousness are almost synonyms,
and selection is the fundamental principle of both."

When unconscious is used in the sense of unattended, one's ac-
tions, ideas, emotions, needs, drives, etc., are unconscious not be-
cause one cannot think of them since they are kept from conscious-
ness, as psychoanalysts insist, but simply because one is thinking of
something else. This is an important theoretical difference.

As to criteria for Definition 7, there are several indices of loss or
absence of attention. For instance there are motor concomitants of
attention. Experimentation has shown that in attention there is a
widespread series of physiological changes, adjustments of receptive
mechanisms, postural changes, diffuse muscular strains, and altera-
tions in respiration, circulation, blood sugar, epinephrin excretion,
etc. These all are characteristically different in inattention. Further-
more loss of attention often is accompanied by loss of adequate reac-
tion to weak stimulation, and some motions take on automatic char-
acter. The subjective aspects of inattention, moreover, may be dis-
covered by introspection. The various applications of these criteria
are considered in Chapter VII.

Another criterion which suggests inferentially that behavior was
performed unconsciously (in the sense of this definition) is to ask
someone, before he would normally forget it, what he has just done.
Freud referred to a case of this sort, and employed this criterion as
it is frequently used in everyday life: 39

3S E. G. Boring, The Physical Dimensions of Consciousness y New York: Century, 1933,
231-2. By permission of the author and of D. Appleton-Century Company.

39 S. Freud, The Basic Writings of Sigmund Freud (Psychopathology of Everyday Life),
93-4. By permission of Random House, Inc.

34 DEFINITIONS AND CRITERIA OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

It is a familiar fact that in reading aloud, the attention of the
reader often wanders from the text and is directed toward his own
thoughts. The results of this deviation of attention are often such
that when interrupted and questioned, he cannot even state what he
has read. In other words, he has read automatically, although the
reading was nearly always correct.

DEFINITION 8

Unconscious^ (applied to an individual) INSIGHTLESS, lacking
insight in the sense used by the Gestalt school of psychologists;
(applied to his actions, ideas, etc.) NOT INVOLVING INSIGHT.

Thorndike and Rock did some experiments on learning a task
without awareness of what is being learned or intent to learn it. 40 In
this work they suggested that learning is unconscious if improve-
ment in learning, instead of manifesting itself suddenly (which
certain Gestalt psychologists 41 said indicates insight into the nature
of part or all of the task), rather occurs gradually (indicating no
insight). In their experiment, because the learning curves rose only
gradually, Thorndike and Rock assumed that die subjects were
not aware of the task, on the ground that with insight the curves
would have risen immediately to one hundred per cent correctness.

Others have suggested that insight and consciousness are the
same, and this position has been vigorously opposed, as is demon-
strated in Chapter VIII.

The criterion of unconsciousness arising from this definition is
obvious if the curve of improvement in learning rises gradually
without a sudden rapid acceleration, the learner is unconscious of
the nature of the task.

DEFINITION 9

Unconscious = (applied to an individual) UNREMEMBERING; (ap-
plied to his actions, emotions, drives, needs, etc.) UNREMEMBERED.

Almost all who are willing to use the word unconscious will agree
that what has been forgotten should be characterized by that term.

40 E. L. Thorndikc and R. T. Rock, Jr., Learning without awareness of what is being
learned or intent to learn it, /. Exper. Psychol., 17, 1934, 1-19.

41 E.g., W. Kohler, The Mentality of Apes, New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1925, 198 and
elsewhere.

DEFINITION 9 35

Seven sorts of forgetting have been suggested: (a) Extinction or
lack of formation of conditioned responses, (b) "Simple forgetting"
the wearing away of memories with time so that finally they
cannot come to consciousness, (c) Alterative forgetting incorrect
remembering, (d} Retroactive inhibition new material preventing
the reproduction of older memories, (e) Dissociation because there
are two separate systems in the personality, neither remembers what
the other does. (/) Suppression, (g) Repression.

Alexander differentiated the last two kinds of forgetting as
follows: 42

In the exclusion from consciousness of certain tendencies there is,
in addition to unconscious repression, a conscious and voluntary
selective process called "suppression," which eliminates from the focus
of interest everything which is even loosely connected with uncon-
scious material. Suppression also eliminates all kinds of irrelevant
material which would distract the attention from the topic which is
at the focus of interest at any given moment.

From the objective point of view suppression and repression are
the same the individual does not communicate the material which
he suppresses any more than that which is repressed. Subjectively,
however, what is suppressed is not unconscious in the sense of this
Definition 9 but rather in the sense of Definition 7 (UNNOTICED or
UNATTENDED). Whether it should be classed as a kind of forgetting
is therefore questionable.

Firmly established conditioned responses arc certainly a kind of
remembering. Therefore when conditioning might be set up but
is not, or when conditioning which is developed later becomes
extinct, we have an example of forgetting. Lack of conditioned
responses, which has already been seen to be a case of unconscious-
ness in terms of Definition 4 (UNDISCRIMINATING), is thus also a case
in terms of the present Definition 9.

The criterion differentiating consciousness from unconsciousness
in this sense is the practical question: Can the material be repro-
duced? Can the individual under consideration tell of something

43 F. Alexander, The Medical Value of Psychoanalysis, New York: Norton, 1936, 95. By
permission of Norton & Company, Inc.

36 DEFINITIONS AND CRITERIA OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

which happened in his past experience? If he is unable to tell of it,
does he or can he perform acts obviously based upon it ? If not, he
is unconscious of it in this sense. The application of this criterion is
often exceedingly difficult, and a full discussion of it is presented in
Chapter IX.

DEFINITION 10

Unconscious = (applied to an individual) ACTING INSTINCTIVELY,
behaving on an unlearned basis; (applied to his actions, ideas, emo-
tions, needs, drives, etc.) UNLEARNED or INHERITED.

The phrases "visceral unconscious" and "instinctual unconscious,"
to be found in psychological writings, refer to the doctrine that the
conditions motivating inherited action patterns, instinctive behavior
which could not be learned and therefore must be based on the
bodily structure, are unrecognized. Biochemistry is continually prov-
ing that there are needs, drives, and physiological disequilibria of
the human organism of which we know nothing, but which never-
theless are constantly satisfied, as they must be for life to continue.

This instinctive aspect is the most important characteristic of the
unconscious forces of psychoanalytic theory. Emerson stated this
' well when he said 43 that the unconscious is in large measure crav-
ings, instincts, impulses, and reflex or physiochemical reactions. As
such, he added, it is not open to social training.

Unconscious and instinctive are often used loosely to mean the
same thing. For example, 44 the context makes it apparent that
Miinsterberg meant unconsciously (UNATTENDED) when he wrote
instinctively in the following passage: 45 "The words of foreign
origin are instinctively replaced by words of German root." Ellwood
expressly equated the two words: 46 "We should be substantially
correct if we defined society as any group of individuals who either
unconsciously (instinctively) or consciously (reflectively) cooperate."

48 L. E. Emerson, The subconscious in its relation to the conscious, prcconscious and
unconscious, Psychoanalyt. Rcv. y 6, 1919, 60.

44 These examples are from L. L. Bernard, op. tit., 128-9.

45 H. Miinsterberg, American Patriotism, New York: Moffat, Yard, 1913, 88-9.

46 C. A. Ellwood, Sociology in Its Psychological Aspects, New York: Appleton, 1912,
13-4. By permission of the author and of D. Appleton-Ccntury Company.

DEFINITION 11 37

Finally, Fabre, the student of instinct in insects, defined instinct
as: 47 "The unconscious impulse that guides the animal in the mar-
velous accomplishments of its industry."

DEFINITION 11

Unconscious '= (applied to an individual) UNRECOGNIZING; (applied
to his emotions, needs, drives, etc.) UNRECOGNIZED.

Sometimes this usage implies that the existence of the process is
not known and at other times that the existence is recognized but
the character of the process is not understood. Consider, for instance,
a statement by Murray: 48 "In the examples cited . . . none of the
variables operating unconsciously were considered to be enduringly
inaccessible to consciousness. The very next moment the S \i.e.,
subject] might have become aware of one or more of them."

The variables referred to by Murray are needs, the dynamic de-
terminers of behavior in his theoretical system, which are satisfied
only by performing certain sorts of acts. It is not clear from this
context whether Murray meant that the subject in question did not
know that these needs existed (was unconscious of them either in
the sense of Definition 16 UNAWARE OF DISCRIMINATION or in the
sense of Definition 6e STIMULI NOT REACHING THE "SEAT OF AWARE-
NESS" OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM), or whether he meant that the subject
knew of the needs but was unaware of their nature or of what
would satisfy them. It is important that such distinctions be made.

Many needs which are unconscious in the sense of Definition 10
(UNLEARNED or INHERITED) are unconscious also in the present usage,
but the two significances are commonly rolled into one word.

A criterion of unconsciousness in this sense is available. If an
individual whose behavior indicates a need of a recognizable sort has
means of satisfying the need but does not take advantage of them,
he is often said to be unaware of the nature of the need or of what
would satisfy it.

47 J.-H. Fabre, Souvenirs entomologiques, Paris: Delagrave, 1919, IV, 65-6. (Author's
translation.)

48 H. A. Murray et al. t Explorations in Personality, New York: Oxford University Press,
8, 52. By permission of Oxford University Press, New York.

38 DEFINITIONS AND CRITERIA OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

DEFINITION 12

Unconscious- (applied to an individual) ACTING INVOLUNTARILY;
(applied to his actions, ideas, emotions, etc.) INVOLUNTARY.

Outlining psychoanalytic doctrine, Brill 49 said that Freud believed
that what is unconscious cannot be voluntarily recalled. Academic
psychologists have never been certain what voluntary means, and
have come to neglect studying the will almost entirely. This in large
measure has been because they have assumed determinism and so
eschewed the investigation of what appears to be "free will." As
unconscious and involuntary came to be used frequently as syno-
nyms 50 the impropriety of the notion of volition did much indirectly
to throw the concept of unconsciousness into disrepute.

The difficulty of finding when a person is or is not acting volun-
tarily, even though introspective evidence be accepted, is so great
that such a procedure would not be an adequate criterion of uncon-
sciousness in the present sense.

Another criterion, however, has been suggested/' 1 Reference has
been made to behavior mediated by parts of the autonomic and
central nervous systems or of the endocrine system which are not
subject to "voluntary" control. If it can be shown that this behavior
is so regulated, it is thus proved unconscious in the present sense of
Definition 12. This criterion is considered in Chapter XL

DEFINITION 13

Unconscious- (applied to an individual) UNABLE TO COMMUNI-
CATE; (applied to his actions, ideas, emotions, needs, drives, etc.)

INCOMMUNICABLE.

It was Watson who originally equated what is unconscious with
what is unverbalized. 52 The most frequent use of this sense of
unconscious is not as Watson employed it, referring merely to what
is not verbalized, but rather referring to what is incapable of ver-

49 A. A. Brill, introduction to S. Frcucl, The Basic Writings of Sigmund Freud, 13.

50 Cf. J. Agcrbcrg, Consciousness as a physiological function, Acta Psychiat. et Neural., 4,
1929, 122.

51 Cf. C. V. Huclgms, Conditioning and the voluntary control of the pupillary light
reflex, /. Gen. PsychoL, 8, 1933, 3-51.

C2 J. B. Watson, The myth of the unconscious, Harper's, 155, 1927, 503.

DEFINITION 13 39

balization, or of any sort of communication. Verbalization is often
mentioned as an indication of consciousness, but this is simply
because use of words is the most obvious sort of evidence. Any sort
of communication, as by gesture or facial expression, should also
be taken as indication of consciousness. Perhaps one can find traces
of the doctrine that man, who alone uses words, is the only con-
scious animal, a doctrine appearing unnoticed in the frequent refer-
ences to words as indices of consciousness.

Sears explained clearly how the sense of unconscious of this present
Definition 13 is important, but made the mistake of using unver-
balizablc instead of incommunicable?*

The term "verbal activity" is used instead of Freud's "conscious-
ness" because for experimental purposes there must be an objectively
measurable response, the lack of which will serve as one of the neces-
sary criteria of repression. It is apparent, of course, that the mean-
ingful content of verbal activity may pass through several developmental
(freverbal) forms before being finally translated into language.
Some of these, like the image, are definitely symbolic and others,
more primitive, like the generalized attitude, are not. . . . There
are, of course, many factors which may interfere with the expres-
sion of conscious images, attitudes, or wishes in words. A man
may frankly wish that he had a different profession but under a
few conditions only will he translate this wish into verbal terms
that an observer could measure. Such factors as alcoholic intoxica-
tion, extreme anxiety, sympathetic intimacy with the recipient of the
information, or some other strong social polarization might be the
only influences which would lead to this translation. It is clear that
in order for the above description to be truly reflective of the Freudian
position there must be a one-to-one relationship between the unex-
pressed content (verbal or preverbal) and the expressed (measur-
able) content of the verbal activity itself.

Throughout our discussions, unconscious, when used in this sense,
will mean that the total condition is such that, for one or more of
many sorts of reasons, the objectively observed fact is that the indi-
vidual involved does not communicate the item of knowledge
under consideration.

63 R. R. Sears, op. tit., 246. By permission of the Psychological Bulletin.

40 DEFINITIONS AND CRITERIA OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

The criterion of unconsciousness in the sense of the present defini-
tion, observed lack of communication, is widely applied, as is shown
in Chapter XII. Various modifications and subdivisions of it have
been employed.

(a) The most frequent, used experimentally 54 and in everyday
life, has been simply the asking of the subject if he is aware of a
stimulus. If he responds affirmatively, he is conscious of it; if nega-
tively, he is unconscious of it.

(b) A second modification of this criterion is simply the record-
ing of what the individual says, without asking him questions. If he
verbalizes something, he is aware of that; otherwise he is not. For
example, when a student takes an examination he is graded solely
on the basis of what he writes down. It is presumed that if he does
not write something he does not know it.

(c) A third modification of this communication criterion is that
behavior patterns or certain aspects of them are unconscious if they
cannot be described or characterized adequately by the individual
performing them. Sapir has suggested using this modification of
the criterion in experimental investigations of forms of social be-
havior: 55

If we can show that normal human beings, both in confessedly
social behavior and often in supposedly individual behavior, are re-
acting in accordance with deep-seated cultural patterns, and if, fur-
ther, we can show that these patterns are not so much known as felt,
not so much capable of conscious description as of nai've practice,
then we have the right to speak of the "unconscious patterning of
behavior in society." The unconscious nature of this patterning con-
sists not in some mysterious function of a racial or social mind re-
flected in the minds of the individual members of society, but merely
in a typical awareness on the part of the individual of outlines and
demarcations and significances of conduct which he is all the time
implicitly following.

In our discussion of Definition 7 (unconscious = umi<mciNG or
UNATTENDING), one criterion mentioned was asking an individual

54 E.g., H. Cason, The conditioned eyelid reaction, /. Exper. Psychol., 5, 1922, 192.
56 E. Sapir, in C. M. Child et a/., The Unconscious: A Symposium, New York: Knopf,
1929, 121 -2. By permission of F. S. Crofts and Company.

DEFINITION 14 41

what he had just done; for example, what he had just read aloud
from a book. If he could not remember what he had read, it would
be assumed that he had been unconscious (UNATTENDING) of it. Such
a procedure implies that one can communicate all that one is con-
scious of, and is really much like the third modification (c) of the
criterion which has just been considered.

DEFINITION 14

Unconscious = (applied to an individual) IGNORING; (applied to his
actions, ideas, needs, emotions, etc.) IGNORED.

Sometimes an individual will act as if ignorant of facts of which
he is really aware. He may or may not be able to recognize and be
willing to admit, under circumstances like a psychoanalysis, that
he really knows the facts. The political orator, for instance, may
thank his listeners for voting for him at the last election, apparently
ignorant that the precinct had been almost unanimous for his
opponent. He is acting realistically, employing a good vote-getting
technique, and it might be difficult to get him to admit that he
knew the true facts about the last election. Broad wrote on this
subject: 56

A method which we very commonly use is to put a ring-fence
around a certain region, to label it as dangerous, and to avert our
attention from the whole of it. All patriots do this with the whole
subject of the virtues of their enemies and the faults of their fellow-
countrymen; many scientists put such a fence round all the subjects
which are investigated by Psychical Researchers; and the minds of
most clergymen appear to be full of regions guarded with barbed
wire and a notice that "Trespassers will be Prosecuted." Once this
has been done it becomes perfectly easy to assert with complete good
faith that we are not deliberately turning our attention away from"
any assigned desire or emotion which falls within such a region.
We can truthfully say that we never thought for a moment of this
particular experience, and therefore cannot have deliberately ignored
it; just as a thief might truly say that he had never touched a certain
necklace if he had merely pocketed the case which in fact contains it.

The boundary between unconscious (IGNORED) facts and uncon-

68 C. D. Broad, op. /., 368-9. By permission of Harcourt, Brace and Company, Inc.

42 DEFINITIONS AND CRITERIA OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

scious (UNREMEMBERED) facts is blurred, and many psychological
writings make no distinction between them. Certainly in specific
instances it is difficult to tell whether a fact was ignored, as Broad
says "deliberately," or whether it was forgotten. No differentiating
criterion except introspection is available.

DEFINITION 15

Unconscious has come to have a specific PSYCHOANALYTIC MEANING.
Freud said: 57

Unconsciousness seemed to us at first only an enigmatical char-
acteristic of a definite psychical act. Now it means more for us. It
is a sign that this act partakes of the nature of a certain psychical
category known to us by other and more important characters, and
that it belongs to a system of psychical activity which is deserving
of our fullest attention. The index-value of the unconscious has far
outgrown its importance as a property. The system revealed by the
sign that the single acts forming parts of it are unconscious we
designate by the name "The Unconscious," for want of a better and
less ambiguous term. In German, I propose to denote this system by
the letters Ubw^ an abbreviation of the German word "Unbewusst."
And this is the . . . most significant sense which the term "uncon-
scious" has acquired in psycho-analysis.

Originally unconscious processes were to Freud those unavailable
to consciousness, which he likened to an "organ of perception." Con-
cerning unconscious processes in this basic sense Freud made several
propositions, and these are all represented by the particular Freudian
meaning of unconscious, which in German he abbreviated Ubw,
and which in English is abbreviated Ucs. These propositions con-
cerning unconscious processes are: (a) that they are dynamically
repressed away from consciousness, the "organ of perception"; 58
() that they can be made available to consciousness only by special
techniques such as hypnosis and psychoanalysis; 59 and (c) that they
are not under voluntary control. 60

57 S. Freud, A note on the unconscious in psycho-analysis, Proceedings Soc. Psychical Re-
search, 26, 1912, 318. By permission of the Society for Psychical Research.
M /*/W., 315-
59 A. A. Brill, he. tit.

DEFINITION 16 43

Freud followed the most precise technique for the use of words
in making a special abbreviation which would characterize his par-
ticular meaning. He was entirely justified in having one word stand
for a series of characteristics as he did. He did not, however, always
demonstrate when he used the term that all the characteristics which
he included in the term were present. Unless this is amply evi-
denced, such a compound meaning constitutes a snare.

It is frequently difficult in psychoanalytic writings to determine
whether unconscious is used in Freud's sense or with some one of ,
the other meanings. Following the excellent precedent of using the
abbreviation Ucs. for the psychoanalytic meaning would obviate
this ambiguity.

DEFINITION 16

Unconscious = (applied to an individual) UNAWARE OF DISCRIMINA-
TION; (applied to his actions, ideas, emotions, needs, drives, etc.),

UNAVAILABLE TO AWARENESS.

As Definition 4 (UNDISCRIMINATING) refers to the basic sense of
unconscious for those who accept only behavioral evidence, so this
is the golden meaning of the word for those who admit the validity
of introspective testimony. The individual is unconscious in this
sense unless he not only discriminates stimuli but also reacts dis-
criminatingly to his discrimination. As Krikorian has said: 01 "To
be conscious means to respond cognitively to a stimulus which is
itself a response."

We have seen that Freud considers consciousness an organ of per-
ception, 62 and one is unconscious in the sense of this Definition 16
of whatever that organ does not perceive. On the other hand, psy-
chologists of the objective schools have stated repeatedly that be-^
havior is no different whether one is conscious or unconscious in
this sense. On that front rages the main battle of consciousness.

A criterion commonly accepted as indicating that a person is
unaware of some of his discriminations is that if he recognized what

61 Y. H. Krikorian, An empirical definition of consciousness, /. Phil., 35, 1938, 160.
By permission of the Journal of Philosophy.
62 A. A. Brill, loc. cit.

44 DEFINITIONS AND CRITERIA OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

he is doing he would not act as he is acting. Experiments in which
this criterion of unconsciousness was employed are mentioned in
Chapter XL

THE OVERBURDENING OF UNCONSCIOUS

The word unconscious has been worked overtime to convey all
these meanings. For clarity's sake it is essential that these diverse
significances be kept separate. Watson has said 63 of the layman that
"if he lost his unconscious, [he] would feel as disturbed about it as
did Peter Schlemihl when his faithful shadow departed in the keep-
ing of the devil." Such anxiety reactions would also characterize
most psychologists, clinical and academic alike, but there is no
unanimity as to which sort of unconsciousness is so indispensable.
In future chapters the clinical and experimental evidence throwing
light on each sort are reviewed.

63 J. B. Watson, op. cit. y 502.

CHAPTER II
CASES OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

Hookc in his preface to Micrographia stated what he believed to
be the proper way to do scientific work:

So many are the linfa upon which the true Philosophy depends,
of which, if any one be loose, or weal^ the whole chain is in danger
of being dissolved; it is to begin with the Hands and Eyes, and to
proceed on through the Memory, to be continued by the Reason;
nor is it to stop there, but to come about to the Hands and Eyes
again, and so, by a continual passage round from one Faculty to
another, it is to be maintained in life and strength, as mucfi as the
body of man is by the circulation of the blood through the several
parts of the body, the Arms, the Fat, the Lungs, the Heart, and the
Head.

In like manner we shall conduct our considerations. First let us
observe the phenomena cases of unconscious behavior; thereafter
we shall investigate theory about such phenomena; and last we
shall evaluate these cases in the light of that theory.

Many of the sorts of unconsciousness distinguished in Chapter I
are illustrated in the cases of the present chapter. Certain types of
unconsciousness are pictured in more than one case, and frequently
more than one type can be found in a single case. The reader may
be interested in deciding for himself as he reads the cases in what
senses the individuals with which they deal were unconscious. At
the end of this chapter (p. 74) is a table indicating some of the-
senses of unconscious illustrated by the cases.

46 CASES OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

CASE I

"A number of persons of importance, magistrates and professors,
had assembled in the main hall of the Salpetriere museum to witness
a great seance of criminal suggestions. Witt., the principal subject,
thrown into the somnambulist state, had under the influence of
suggestion displayed the most sanguinary instincts. At a word or a
sign, she had stabbed, shot, and poisoned [with paper swords, blank
pistols, and false poison]; the room was littered with corpses. . . .
The notables had withdrawn, greatly impressed, leaving only a few
students with the subject, who was still in the somnambulist state.
The students, having a fancy to bring the seance to a close by a less
blood-curdling experiment, made a very simple suggestion to Witt.
They told her that she was now quite alone in the hall. She was to
strip and take a bath. Witt., who had murdered all the magistrates
without turning a hair, was seized with shame at the thought of
undressing. Rather than accede to the suggestion, she had a violent
fit of hysterics." 1

1 P. Janet, Psychological Healing, New York: Macmillan, 1925, T, 184. He retells the
incident from Gilles de la Tourettc, L'hypnotisme et Ics etats analogues au point de vue
medico-legal, 1887, 203. By permission of Allen & Unwin, Ltd.

CASE n 47

CASE H

Sam W., a sixteen-year-old boy, was admitted to the hospital
because of spells of walking and talking in his sleep. He got out of
bed one night, took a knife from the kitchen, began what he said
was a hunt for the dog, and fell down stairs. He was carried to bed.
The next morning he was asked: "Did you dream about going
after the dog with a knife last night?" He answered, "Yes, how did
you know?" He was then told the circumstances. This was the way
he usually learned that he had really acted out what he had dreamed.

Another night while asleep he took a jack-knife from his pocket
and carved his initials on his arm. (The scar "S.W." is still there.)
The boy sleeping in the room with him reported this, but said he
was afraid to stop him for fear of being stabbed.

On another occasion his knife had been taken from him and
hidden, but he rose and found it in his sleep. Then he stood over
his roommate's bed with knife in hand, and finally scratched the
boy's head with the knife, put it down, and went back to bed. 2

2 E. Guttmann and C. E. Wintcrstein, Disturbances of consciousness after head injuries;
Used by the courtesy of Dr. Stanley Cobb.

48 CASES OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

CASE m

"[A boxer] was knocked out in the first minute of the first round;
his recollection began only 36 hours later, when he found himself
sitting in a train and wondering where he was traveling. His
behaviour was apparently unexceptional to the lay observers. When
examined here he showed a few nystagmoid jerks, slurred speech,
deviation of the tongue to the left. All deep reflexes were very active,
the left ankle-jerk more so than the right. There was slight ataxia
of his left arm, and marked unsteadiness in standing and walking.
The left leg was slightly dragged." 3

3 E. Guttmann and C. E. Winterstcin, Disturbances of consciousness after head injuries:
observations on boxers, /. Ment. Sci., 84, 1938, 348-9.

CASE IV 49

CASE IV

"This patient, a young girl, began as follows: 'You remember
that my sister has now only one boy, Charles. She lost the elder
one, Otto, while I was still living with her. Otto was my favourite;
it was I who really brought him up. I like the other little fellow,
too, but, of course, not nearly as much as his dead brother. Now I
dreamt last night that I saw Charles lying dead before me. He was
lying in his little coffin, his hands folded; there were candles all
about; and, in short, it was just as it was at the time of little Otto's
death, which gave me such a shocf(. Now tell me, what does this
mean? You know me am I really so bad as to wish that my sister
should lose the only child she has left? Or does the dream mean
that I wish that Charles had died rather than Otto, whom I liked
so much better?'

"I assured her that this latter interpretation was impossible. After
some reflection, I was able to give her the interpretation of the
dream, which she subsequently confirmed. I was able to do so
because the whole previous history of the dreamer was known to me.

"Having become an orphan at an early age, the girl had been
brought up in the home of a much older sister, and had met, among
the friends and visitors who frequented the house, a man who made
a lasting impression upon her affections. It looked for a time as
though these barely explicit relations would end in marriage, but
this happy culmination was frustrated by the sister, whose motives
were never completely explained. After the rupture the man whom
my patient loved avoided the house; she herself attained her inde-
pendence some time after the death of little Otto, to whom, mean-^
while, her affections had turned. But she did not succeed in freeing
herself from the dependence due to her affection for her sister's
friend. Her pride bade her avoid him, but she found it impossible
to transfer her love to the other suitors who successively presented
themselves. Whenever the man she loved, who was a member of
the literary profession, announced a lecture anywhere, she was cer-
tain to be found among the audience; and she seized every other

50 CASES OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

opportunity of seeing him unobserved. I remembered that on the
previous day she had told me that the Professor was going to a
certain concert, and that she too was going, in order to enjoy the
sight of him. This was on the day before the dream; and the con-
cert was to be given on the day on which she told me the dream.
I could now easily see the correct interpretation, and I asked her
whether she could think of any particular event which had occurred
after Otto's death. She replied immediately: 'Of course; the Pro-
fessor returned then, after a long absence, and I saw him once more
beside little Otto's coffin.' It was just as I had expected. I interpreted
the dream as follows: 'If now the other boy were to die, the same
thing would happen again. You would spend the day with your
sister; the Professor would certainly come to offer his condolences,
and you would see him once more under the same circumstances as
before. The dream signifies nothing more than this wish of yours
to see him again a wish against which you are fighting inwardly.
I know that you have the ticket for to-day's concert in your bag.
Your dream is a dream of impatience; it has anticipated by several
hours the meeting which is to take place to-day.' " 4

4 S. Freud, The Basic Writings of Sigmund Freud, ed. A. A. Brill, New York: Random
House, 1938 (The Interpretation of Dreams), 229-30. By permission of Random House,
Inc.

CASE V 51

CASE V

L. P., a student in law school, visited a psychiatrist because he
could not study. It was learned that he was unable to concentrate
on the words in his books because figures appeared on the pages
before him. These were the characters in fantasies about himself
which kept running through his mind. In one common day-dream
he had become a multi-millionaire and had offered his alma mater
a million dollars to found a chair in communism. That conservative
institution would have liked to have had the money, but was un-
willing to have a professorship in the subject he desired. He there-
fore used his money to found a competing university, one of whose
main functions was the teaching of communism.

In another of his fantasies he saw himself as the only man remain-
ing alive in the world. He was surrounded by a bevy of beautiful
girls. He and his entourage traveled from one luxurious vacation
spot to another. Wherever they went men and women sprang from
the dead to serve and wait upon them, and then returned to their
graves after they departed. Everything was under the sway of his
absolute will. 5

5 From a case history of Prof. Henry A. Murray, and used with his permission.

52 CASES OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

CASE VI

"A patient of mine had received a gun-shot injury, which had
disorganized the elbow joint and completely destroyed the ulnar
nerve. For five months we hoped to be able to save the limb, but
were at last compelled to amputate through the lower third of the
arm. From the time he was wounded, there were the usual changes,
both motor and sensory, associated with complete ulnar paralysis;
but the little finger alone was devoid of all forms of sensibility,
superficial and deep. So long as he retained his limb, this finger
seemed to him a dead object attached to the hand. But the phantom
hand, which appeared after amputation, had four digits only. Dur-
ing the five months of total insensibility, the schemata associated
with the little finger, no longer reinforced from the periphery, had
gradually died away and, when the actual hand was removed, this
digit was absent from consciousness. A portion of the body, cut off
from the central nervous system, but attached to structures endowed
with sensibility and movement, may continue to exist as a 'dead'
part of ourselves. Like a dental plate in the mouth, it occupies a
certain place in our spacial conceptions. But, as soon as the struc-
tures on which it is based are removed, it disappears from conscious-
ness, whilst the normal parts of the amputated limb are represented
in phantom form." 6

6 H. Head, The conception of nervous and mental energy (II), Brit. J. Psychol., 14,
1923, 136-7.

CASE vii 53

CASE VII

"Some years ago when studying the flight of soaring birds, by
practice my eye became trained to see minute differences in wing
adjustments that would be quite invisible to the untrained observer.
It seems to me probable that my training was partly connected with
my habit of writing down at the time whatever was observed, for it
sometimes happened that having seen something, and being aware
that it was worth recording and on turning at once to my note-
book, I had great difficulty in calling to consciousness exactly what
it was that had been seen. About one adjustment that was used for
checking speed, it is recorded in my book that though I learnt to
recognise when a bird began to use it, there was no change in the
appearance of the bird sufficient for me to express in words. Years
afterwards the nature of the adjustment was discovered. It pro-
duced a change in outline of the wing-tip that was too small to be
recognised by me consciously, but my subconscious mind apparently
was aware of the difference and enabled me to know that the bird
had changed its mode of flight." 7

7 H. Hankin, Common Sense, New York: Dutton, 1926, 27-8. By permission of E. P.
Dutton & Company, Inc., and of Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Company, Ltd.

54 CASES OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

CASE VHI

Ellen J., a twenty-year-old girl, was in the room with her father
when her mother came in, carrying a glass of tomato juice and two
aspirin tablets on a tray. These were for the father, who was taking
them regularly, several times a day. The mother stopped in front
of her daughter and asked her a question about her new job, in
which both were much interested. Ellen gave a long answer, in the
course of which she and her mother became deeply absorbed in
what she was saying. During this reply, Ellen took the tomato
juice and aspirin from her mother and swallowed them. When she
had finished speaking, her surprised mother asked what had become
of her father's tomato juice and aspirin. The girl was equally aston-
ished to find what she had done, and at first could give no reason
for it. Finally she decided that she must have assumed that the
aspirins were vitamin BI pills, and that her mother, who had great
faith in the powers of vitamins, wanted her to take them. Because
of her absorption and despite the different appearance of the pills
and the inappropriateness of the medication, she swallowed them
automatically without remembering the act. 8

8 From the case records and by courtesy of Dr. Stanley Cobb.

CASE IX 55

CASE IX

"For a fortnight, I had been trying to prove that no function
could exist analogous to what I have since called the fuchsian func-
tion. I was very ignorant at that time; every day I sat down at my
table; I passed an hour or two there: I tried a great number of
combinations, but I did not reach any result. One evening, I drank
some black coffee, which I was not accustomed to do; I could not
sleep; ideas crowded in on me; they seemed to me to collide with
one another, until two of them hooked together, as it were, to form
a stable combination. In the morning I had established the existence
of one class of fuchsian functions, that derived from the hypcr-
gcometric series; I had nothing to do but to check the result, which
took me a few hours. . . .

"At this time I left Caen where I was living at the time, to take
part in a course of Geology. The journey made me forget my mathe-
matical work; when we arrived at Coutances we got into an omnibus
to make some excursion or other; at the moment of putting my
foot on the step, the idea occurred to me, without anything in my
immediately preceding thoughts having prepared me for it, that
the transformations which I have used to define fuchsian functions
were identical with those of non-euclidian geometry. I did not verify
this: I had no time to do so, since no sooner was I seated in the
omnibus than I took up the conversation I had begun; but I was
entirely certain of the result. On returning to Caen I verified it at
leisure, in order to satisfy my conscience.

"I then set to work to study arithmetical questions without any
apparent result of importance, and without suspecting that there
would be the least connection with my previous researches. Dis-
gusted with my failure, I went for a few days' holiday to the seaside
and thought of quite other matters. One day, while walking on the
cliffs, the idea occurred to me, again with the same characteristics of
brevity, suddenness and certitude (I underline these words) that
arithmetical transformations of indefinite ternary quadratic form

56 CASES OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

were identical with those of non-euclidian geometry. Here was a
new problem. At first all my efforts only served to teach me the
difficulty more fully. This part of the work was entirely conscious.
It was again followed by unconscious work. . . .

"What will strike you at first are these appearances of sudden
illumination which are the manifest tokens of a long unconscious
labour which has preceded them; the part played by this uncon-
scious labour in mathematical invention appears incontestible to
me, and traces will be found of it in other cases where it is less evi-
dent. Often, when one is working at a difficult question, one pro-
duces nothing of any use on the first occasion of attacking the
problem; later, one may take a rest of greater or less duration, and
sit down at the table again. For the first half hour one may continue
to get no result, and then quite suddenly the decisive idea is pre-
sented to the mind. One could say that conscious labour had been
more fruitful because it has been interrupted and because the rest
had restored to the mind its power and freshness. It is more prob-
able that the period of rest is filled by unconscious labour, and that
the result of this labour is afterwards revealed quite suddenly to
the geometer, as in the cases that I have cited; only that the revela-
tion, instead of appearing during a walk or a journey, has been
produced during a period of conscious work, but independently
of this work, which plays at the most the part of a releasing force,
acting as a stimulus which excites the results already attained during
the rest period, but still buried in the unconscious, to take a con-
scious form." 9

9 From H. Poincare, Science et method?, 56-8, as quoted in J.-M. Montmasson, Invention
and the Unconscious, trans. H. S. Hatfield, London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubncr, 1931,
80-2.

CASE X 57

CASE X

Lowes, as a literary detective, has ferreted out the sources from
which came the words and phrases which Coleridge combined into
his inspired verses. An illustration of such a search and its results
may be found in what Lowes names, after the fashion of Conan
Doyle, The Adventure of the Water-Snakes.

In The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Coleridge wrote:

"Beyond the shadow of the ship,
I watched the water-snakes:
They moved in tracks of shining white,
And when they reared, the elfish light
Fell off in hoary flakes.

"Within the shadow of the ship
I watched their rich attire:
Blue, glossy green, and velvet black,
They coiled and swam; and every track
Was a flash of golden fire."

In his search Lowes had certain clues: he knew what books
Coleridge had been reading; he knew that Coleridge also read
every book mentioned in the texts and footnotes of whatever he
read; and finally he had Coleridge's notebook in which the poet
jotted down phrases and passages for use in his writings.

By a chain of reasoning worthy of his prototype, Sherlock Holmes,
Lowes deduced that Coleridge had read the following observations
of Father Bourzes, on Luminous Appearances in the Wakes of Ships
in the Sea (italics throughout are Lowes's) :

"Not only the Wake of a Ship produces this Light, but Fishes
also in swimming leave behind 'em a luminous Tracf(] which is so
bright that one may distinguish the Largeness of the Fish, and know
of what Species it is. I have sometimes seen a great many Fishes
playing in the Sea f which have made a \ind of artificial Fire in the
Water, that was very pleasant to loo% on."

58 CASES OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

Here is an event much like the mariner's experience in the poem,
and it contains, besides, two words found in the Rime "track"
and "fire." Searching farther Lowes learned that Coleridge had
read the narrative of Cook's last voyage which said in part:

"During a cdm, on the morning of the 2d, some parts of the sea
seemed covered with a t(ind of slime, and some small sea animals
were swimming about. The most conspicuous of which were of the
gelatinous . . . kind, almost globular; and another sort smaller,
that had a white, or shining appearance, and were very numerous.
. . . Sometimes they . . . assumfed] various tints of blue . . .
which were frequently mixed with a ruby, or opaline redness; and
glowed with a strength sufficient to illuminate the vessel and
water. . . . But, with candle light, the colour was, chiefly, a beau-
tiful, pale green, tinged with a burnished gloss \ and, in the dark,
it had a faint appearance of glowing fire. They proved to be ...
probably, an animal which has a share in producing some sorts of
that lucid appearance, often observed near ships at sea, in the night."

That these two passages should become associated in Coleridge's
mind because of their similarities is understandable; and, more-
over, it is not surprising that the first phrase, "During a calm,"
should connect this latter quotation with the fate of the becalmed
ancient mariner. In this paragraph we have one origin of another
part of the poem:

"Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs
Upon the slimy sea."

But closer to the present quest is the fact that here also is men-
tioned "shining white," by which Coleridge described the tracks
of the snakes; here again is "fire"; and most interesting of all, the
colors of the water snakes "blue" and "glossy green" all except
"velvet black."

Lowes followed the spoor of the missing color and soon found
the following description in Bartram, one of Coleridge's favorite
authors:

"The whole fish is of a pale gold (or burnished brass) colour

CASE X 59

. . . the scales are ... powdered with red, russet, silver, blue and
green specks, [and at the gills is] a little spatula . . . encircled with
silver, and velvet blackj*

The elusive adjective is found in a passage with many similarities
to the one from Cook's voyages "burnished brass" and "burnished
gloss," red, blue, and green animals, in both. In this manner Lowes
uncovers what he believes to be the sources of each minute detail of
the stanzas. The snakes come from Purchas his Pilgrimage; they
turned into water-snakes on account of the effect of Dampier's New
Voyage round the World or The History of the Bucaniers of Amer-
ica; and they "reared" because of a statement in Leemius's De
Lapponibus. Finally from Falconer's The Shipwreck comes the sym-
metry in the first lines of our pair of stanzas, and the word "hoary"
for good measure. 10

10 Based on J. L. Lowes, The Road to Xanadu, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1927, 38 ff.

60 CASES OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

CASE XI

"The first instance to be described is the power of rapid diagnosis
possessed by many medical men. It frequently happens that doctors
distinguished for their power of rapid and accurate diagnosis are
unable to give reasons for the opinions they form. For instance, a
medical man gave me a detailed account of a doctor, at a hospital
where my informant had been a student, who had a power of this
kind that was little short of marvellous. A child arrived one day
at the hospital very ill. Several members of the staff examined the
child carefully, but were unable to discover what was the matter
with it. Afterwards the doctor in question came to the hospital,
and, not knowing of this failure in diagnosis happened to walk
through the ward where the child was lying. While walking slowly
past the child's bed, but without stopping, he remarked, 'That child
has pus in his abdomen.' This rapid diagnosis was afterwards found
to be correct. It is easy to say that this was a lucky guess. But the
doctor in question so frequently made lucky guesses of this nature
that it was impossible to ascribe them to chance. My informant,
who was then at the head of a large hospital, had similar power.
He told me that he is sometimes unable to tell the students the rea-
sons for his diagnosis, despite his attempts to call his reasons to
mind. The case of another physician has been related to me whose
habit of intuitive diagnosis went so far that he was useless as a
teacher. Frequently when asked why he had made a particular
diagnosis he had to reply, 'I am sure I don't know.' " n

11 H. Hankin, op. cit., 21-2. By permission of E. P. Button & Company, Inc., and of
Kcgan Paul, Trench, Trubncr and Company, Ltd.

CASE xn 61

CASE XH

D. P. married when she was in her early twenties, and her hus-
band was about the same age. They lived a life of luxury until his
sudden death in 1923. After his death she had an income of $2500
to $3000 a month. She began playing the stock market, and lost
most of her money. She had difficulty with her father-in-law, who
was giving her the income, and finally he cut it off. She sold her
car and jewelry and lived with friends.

Then she began going with her present husband, whom she had
known several years. They were married six years ago, rather sud-
denly, but she thought they were in love at the time. His business
required him to travel a good deal. Three months after marriage he
developed tuberculosis and went west for his health. She remained
working in a store in the Middle West and then got a job in a store
in Boston. Her husband got better and wired her to come west.
She gave up her job and went out to take care of him, but he be-
came morose and finally disappeared with his baggage, leaving a
letter, telling her to go back to the East, and $75.

She spent that winter with friends in New Hampshire, then came
to Boston with little money, to look for work. She had no refer-
ences, was dissatisfied with positions she was offered, and so did
not get a job. After a week she became discouraged, depressed, and
lonesome. She could not sleep, and worried about running out of
money, but was too proud to fall back on friends again. She devel-
oped loss of memory, though it is not clear when this occurred. A
week before she left her rooming house she was quite upset, smoked
incessantly, could not sleep, heard ringing sounds, and was con-
fused. Finally one morning she started out in a dazed condition,
wandered about the streets not knowing where she was. At last she
arrived at a hotel where she had once worked, and went to the
ladies' second-floor dressing room. Suicidal thoughts passed through
her mind, and she spent the night trying to decide whether or not
to jump out of the dressing-room window. In the early morning
she was found and brought to the hospital.

62 CASES OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

On examination it was discovered that the patient was well
oriented, but had no memory of the days just past and did not
know her own name. She cried frequently. Over a period of a
month her memory returned little by little, her depression disap-
peared, and she recognized that her loss of memory was in part
the result of her discouragement and panic about her financial
condition. 12

13 From psychiatric records of Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts.
Used by the courtesy of Dr. Stanley Cobb.

CASE XIII 63

CASE xm

"Let us take up the case of that young girl, Irene, who acts during
her somnambulism the scene of her mother's death with such ap-
parent precision. Let us watch her during the intervals of her fits,
during the period in which she seems to be normal; we shall soon
notice that even at that time she is different from what she was
before. Her relatives, when she was conveyed to the hospital, said
to us: 'She has grown callous and insensible, she has soon forgotten
her mother's death, and does not seem to remember her illness/
That remark seems amazing; it is, however, true that this young
girl is unable to tell us what brought about her illness, for the good
reason that she has quite forgotten the dramatic event that happened
three months ago. 'I know very well my mother must be dead,' she
says, 'since I have been told so several times, since I see her no more,
and since I am in mourning; but I really feel astonished at it. When
did she die ? What did she die from ? Was I not by her to take care
of her? There is something I do not understand. Why, loving her as
I did, do I not feel more sorrow for her death? I can't grieve; I feel
as if her absence was nothing to me, as if she were travelling, and
would soon come back.' The same thing happens if you put to her
questions about any of the events that happened during those three
months before her mother's death. If you ask her about the illness,
the mishaps, the nightly staying up, anxieties about money, the
quarrels with her drunken father, all these things have quite van-
ished from her mind. If we had had time to dwell upon that case,
we should have seen these many curious instances: the filial love,
the feeling of affection she had felt for her mother, have quite van-^
ished. It looks as if there was a gap as well in the feelings as in the
memory. But I shall insist only on one point: the loss of memory
bears not only, as is generally believed, on the period of somnam-
bulism, on the scene of delirium; the loss of memory bears also on
the event that has given birth to that delirium, on all the facts that
are connected with it, on the feelings that are related to it." 13

18 P. Janet, The Major Symptoms of Hysteria, New York: Macmillan, 1907, 37-8.

64 CASES OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

CASE XIV

"Miss Christine L. Beauchamp, the subject of this study, is a per-
son in whom several personalities have become developed; that is
to say, she may change her personality from time to time, often from
hour to hour, and with each change her character becomes trans-
formed and her memories altered. In addition to the real, original
or normal self, the self that was born and which she was intended
by nature to be, she may be any one of three different persons. I
say three different, because, although making use of the same body,
each, nevertheless, has a distinctly different character; a difference
manifested by different trains of thought, by different views, beliefs,
ideals, and temperament, and by different acquisitions, tastes, habits,
experiences, and memories. Each varies in these respects from the
other two, and from the original Miss Beauchamp. Two of these
personalities have no knowledge of each other or of the third,
excepting such information as may be obtained by inference or
second hand, so that in the memory of each of these two there are
blanks which correspond to the times when the others are in the
flesh. Of a sudden one or the other wakes up to find herself, she
knows not where, and ignorant of what she has said or done a
moment before. . . .

"The home life was probably the most trying to B I [one of the
personalities] and BIV [another personality]. To begin with, dress-
ing was a labor. It was apt to mean two or more baths, for IV would
never believe she had had one unless she took it herself. This may
seem a trivial matter, but what answer was she to make to the other
inmates of the house when she was reminded that she had just taken
one bath ? Then the afternoon bath was likely to be similarly dupli-
cated and similarly commented upon. She did manage to give
apparently satisfactory answers and avert suspicion, but it was trying.
B I, too, was often in the same predicament. Then, after the bath,
came dressing. Suppose it was BI who began, and suppose Sally
[another and always mischievous personality] had not hidden some

CASE XIV 65

of the most important articles. When nearly dressed, B IV as likely
as not would come and then off would come everything, to be
replaced by clothes of B IV's liking, and the hair would be done
all over again another way. Lucky it was if B I did not come again
before finishing, and all did not have to be done over again for a
third time. Then came the family breakfast involving new difficul-
ties; and then the family papers, exercises, and letters had to be
found. Where were they? Had Sally destroyed them, or IV, or BI?
(for somebody always objected to something) and so on. Before
the day began it was three hours' hard work, requiring unending
patience and much strength." 14

14 M. Prince, The Dissociation of a Personality, New York: Longmans, Green, 1906,
i, 2, 419. By pcrnmMon ot Lonymam, Green and Company

66 CASES OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

CASE XV

"H. M., an intelligent man aged 32, a railroad fireman, had com-
plained of epileptic seizures for three years before admission to the
hospital. The cause of these seizures was found to be a small glioma
of benign type deep in the frontal lobe near the midline and anterior
to the motor gyrus. ... In April 1935 the right hemisphere was
exposed by osteoplastic craniotomy, and careful experiments with
stimulation were carried out. . . .

"The positive results of stimulation were as follows: When point
73 [an arbitrary number for a point on the surface of the brain
hemisphere] was touched with the electrode the patient reported
a sensation in the little finger of the left hand. Extension of this
finger was observed. This was repeated twice without warning with
the same result. At /, a feeling of 'electricity' was produced in the
left middle finger. No movement was associated with the sensation.
At 2 a feeling of 'electricity' was produced in the left index finger;
at //, there were flexion of the left arm and forearm and extension
of the fingers. Stimulation of the last point was repeated, with the
same result. . . .

"On the precentral gyrus, at point 5, which lies between two areas
from which were produced movements of the upper extremity and
of the face, respectively, stimulation resulted in vocalization. Because
this was the first example of such vocalization, stimulation of this
point was repeated thirty-one times, without causing undue fatigue.

"At the first response the patient emitted a somewhat groaning
'Oh.' After stimulation stopped, he said : 'I do not know why I made
that noise.' This was repeated four times, with the same result. The
intensity of thyratron stimulation was 28, the frequency of the
stimulus being between 60 and 70 per second. When the patient
was asked why he continued to make this noise, he said: 'I don't
know. Something made me speak, and I felt something touch up
there.' This sensation of touch may have been due to pressure on
the unanesthetized scalp. The next time stimulation was done he
said: Tou' must have made me do that.' The same strength of

CASE XV 67

stimulus produced numerous sensory results in the other areas of
the cortex, but no other motor response.

"At the seventh stimulation Dr. Colin Russel observed the patient
carefully during the vocalization. He remarked that the mouth
opened widely, without any expression of fear or emotion during
crying. At the eighth stimulation the patient vocalized loudly; when
he was asked afterward whether he had felt anything, he said:
Telt anything! Sure, it felt as though you were pulling the voice
out of me!' The longer the stimulation was continued the louder
the tone and the higher the pitch seemed to become. I prolonged
the fourteenth stimulation to study the effect. In this instance,
vocalization continued for six seconds and ended in a tremolo
(probably when the breath gave out). On one occasion the patient
vocalized, then drew a deep breath and continued to cry.

"At the eighteenth trial area /2, about 6 mm. below area 5, was
stimulated, a somewhat stronger stimulus being used. Stimulation
of both areas was repeated on the twentieth trial, and it was noted
that the tone of the voice was higher at area 5 than at area 72; the
effort, however, seemed greater when 5 was stimulated, which may
account for the higher tone.

"On the twenty-second stimulation the patient was informed that
he was to try not to call out when the stimulus was applied. He
said he would try. I warned him when I was going to apply the
electrode, but the vocalization began almost immediately after
stimulation and continued until the electrode was withdrawn. I
then said to the patient, 'I win'; he replied, 'You did,' and laughed.
He added: 'I guess I would have won if I had been on that side of
my head.'

"In general, the patient was unable to stop the cry or to influence
it in any way. He was as surprised at the first sound of his own
voice as we were, and he dissociated himself from this artificial
employment of his cortex at once. He knew he had not willed it." 15

15 W. Penfield, The cerebral cortex in man, I, Arch. NeuroL and Psychiat., 40, 1938,
421-3. By permission of the Archives of Neurology and Psychiatry.

68 CASES OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

CASE XVI

Major X, aged 42. "A case of Syntactical Aphasia, due to a wound
over the first temporal gyrus and the Sylvian fissure, produced by a
fragment of shell casing.

"He developed seizures in which he ceased to talk and his right
arm fell powerless on the bed; he was never convulsed, did not
appear to lose consciousness, but could not speak and was powerless
to think. These attacks were preceded by a 'tingling feeling' down
the right side, accompanied by an hallucination of taste and smell
and a peculiar mental state. . . .

"From the first his speech was jargon. He knew what he wanted
to say, but his words poured out in phrases which had no gram-
matical structure and were in most cases incomprehensible. He
could not repeat a sentence said to him and, when he attempted to
read aloud, uttered pure jargon. He was unable to find names for
common objects and yet his correct choice to printed commands
showed that he was familiar with their usual nomenclature. Com-
prehension of spoken words was obviously defective and he was
liable to be puzzled by any but the simplest oral commands. In
general conversation he frequently failed to understand what was
said and to carry on a subject started by himself. Spontaneous
thought was rapid and his intelligence of a high order, but his power
of symbolic formulation and expression was hampered by defects
of internal speech. He undoubtedly comprehended what he read
to himself, even in French, but any attempt to reproduce it aloud
resulted in jargon. Single words were for the most part more easily
written than spoken and, when at a loss, he could frequently write
something which conveyed his meaning. But he was unable to read
what he had written, and this, together with his difficulty in form-
ing phrases, made it impossible to compose a letter or coherent
account of something he wished to convey. He could copy perfectly
but wrote badly to dictation, because of the rapidity with which he
forgot what had been said to him. He added and subtracted without

CASE XVI 69

difficulty and enjoyed solving financial problems. He could not
name a single coin, but recognised their relative value. He played
the piano, read the notes correctly and evidently recognised the
constitution of a chord and the changes of key." 16

10 H. Head, Aphasia and Kindred Disorders of Speech, New York: Macmillan, 1926, II,
215. By permission of The Macmillan Company, publishers.

70 CASES OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

CASE XVII

"A young officer, home on a short leave of absence, asked me to
see his mother-in-law who, in spite of the happiest circumstances,
was embittering her own and her people's existence by a senseless
idea. I am introduced to a well preserved lady of fifty-three with
pleasant, simple manners, who gives the following account without
any hesitation: She is most happily married and lives in the coun-
try with her husband, who operates a large factory. She cannot say
enough for the kind thoughtfulness of her husband. They had
married for love thirty years ago, and since then there had never
been a shadow, a quarrel or cause for jealousy. Now, even though
her two children are well married, the husband and father does
not yet want to retire, from a feeling of duty. A year ago there
happened the incredible thing, incomprehensible to herself as well.
She gave complete credence to an anonymous letter which accused
her excellent husband of having an affair with a young girl and
since then her happiness is destroyed. The more detailed circum-
stances were somewhat as follows: She had a chambermaid with
whom she had perhaps too often discussed intimate matters. This
girl pursued another young woman with positively malicious enmity
because the latter had progressed so much further in life, despite
the fact that she was of no better origin. Instead of going into domes-
tic service, the girl had obtained a business training, had entered
the factory and in consequence of the shorthandedness due to the
drafting of the clerks into the army had advanced to a good position.
She now lives in the factory itself, meets all the gentlemen socially,
and is even addressed as 'Miss.' The girl who had remained behind
in life was of course ready to speak all possible evil of her one-time
schoolmate. One day our patient and her chambermaid were talking
of an old gentleman who had been visiting at the house, and of
whom it was known that he did not live with his wife, but kept
another woman as his mistress. She does not know how it hap-
pened that she suddenly remarked, That would be the most awful
thing that could happen to me, if I should ever hear that my good

CASE XVII 71

husband also had a mistress.' The next day she received an anony-
mous letter through the mail which, in a disguised handwriting,
carried this very communication which she had conjured up. She
concluded it seems justifiably that the letter was the handiwork
of her malignant chambermaid, for the letter named as the hus-
band's mistress the self-same woman whom the maid persecuted
with her hatred. Our patient, in spite of the fact that she immediately
saw through the intrigue and had seen enough in her town to know
how little credence such cowardly denunciations deserve, was never-
theless at once prostrated by the letter. She became dreadfully ex-
cited and promptly sent for her husband in order to heap the
bitterest reproaches upon him. Her husband laughingly denied the
accusation and did the best that could be done. He called in the
family physician, who was as well the doctor in attendance at the
factory, and the latter added his efforts to quiet the unhappy woman.
Their further procedure was also entirely reasonable. The cham-
bermaid was dismissed, but the pretended rival was not. Since then,
the patient claims she has repeatedly so far calmed herself as no
longer to believe the contents of the anonymous letter, but this
relief was neither thoroughgoing nor lasting. It was enough to hear
the name of the young lady spoken or to meet her on the street in
order to precipitate a new attack of suspicion, pain and reproach.

"This, now, is the case history of this good woman. It does not
need much psychiatric experience to understand that her portrayal
of her own case was, if anything, rather too mild in contrast to other
nervous patients. The picture, we say, was dissimulated; in reality
she had never overcome her belief in the accusation of the anony-
mous letter. . . .

"The idea with which this woman torments herself cannot in
itself be called nonsensical, for it does happen that elderly married
men have affairs with young girls. But there is something else about
it that is nonsensical and incredible. The patient has no reason
beyond the declaration in the anonymous letter to believe that her
tender and faithful husband belongs to this sort of married men,
otherwise not uncommon. She knows that this letter in itself carries

72 CASES OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

no proof; she can satisfactorily explain its origin; therefore she
ought to be able to persuade herself that she has no reason to be
jealous. Indeed she does this, but in spite of it she suffers every bit
as much as she would if she acknowledged this jealousy as fully
justified. We are agreed to call ideas of this sort, which are inacces-
sible to arguments based on logic or on facts, 'obsessions! Thus the
good lady suffers from an 'obsession of jealousy' that is surely a
distinctive characterization for this pathological case. . . .

"May I ask you first to note the apparently insignificant fact that
the patient actually provoked the anonymous letter which now
supports her delusion. The day before, she announces to the in-
triguing chambermaid that if her husband were to have an affair
with a young girl it would be the worst misfortune that could
befall her. By so doing she really gave the maid the idea of sending
her the anonymous letter. The obsession thus attains a certain inde-
pendence from the letter; it existed in the patient beforehand
perhaps as a dread; or was it a wish? Consider, moreover, these
additional details yielded by an analysis of only two hours. The
patient was indeed most helpful when, after telling her story, she
was urged to communicate her further thoughts, ideas and recol-
lections. She declared that nothing came to her mind, that she had
already told everything. After two hours the undertaking had really
to be given up because she announced that she already felt cured
and was sure that the morbid idea would not return. Of course,
she said this because of this resistance and her fear of continuing
the analysis. In these two hours, however, she had let fall certain re-
marks which made possible definite interpretation, indeed made it
incontestable; and this interpretation throws a clear light on the
origin of her obsession of jealousy. Namely, she herself was very
much infatuated with a certain- young man, the very same son-in-
law upon whose urging she had come to consult me professionally.
She knew nothing of this infatuation, or at least only a very little.
Because of the existing relationship, it was very easy for this infatua-
tion to masquerade under the guise of harmless tenderness. With
all our further experience it is not difficult to feel our way toward

CASE XVII 73

an understanding of the psychic life of this honest woman and
good mother. Such an infatuation, a monstrous, impossible thing,
could not be allowed to become conscious. But it continued to exist
and unconsciously exerted a heavy pressure. Something had to
happen, some sort of relief had to be found and the mechanism of
displacement which so constantly takes part in the origin of obses-
sional jealousy offered the most immediate mitigation. If not only
she, old woman that she was, was in love with a young man but if
also her old husband had an affair with a young girl, then she
would be freed from the voice of her conscience which accused her
of infidelity. The phantasy of her husband's infidelity was thus like
a cooling salve on her burning wound. Of her own love she never
became conscious, but the reflection of it, which would bring her
such advantages, now became compulsive, obsessional and con-
scious. Naturally all arguments directed against the obsession were
of no avail since they were directed only to the reflection, and not
to the original force to which it owed its strength and which,
unimpeachable, lay buried in the unconscious." 17

17 S. Freud, A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis, New York: Liveright, 1920,
213-8.

74 CASES OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

MEANINGS OF UNCONSCIOUS ILLUSTRATED BY THE
CASES OF CHAPTER II

Case I UNRESPONSIVE TO STIMULATION, HYPNOTIZED

Case II UNRESPONSIVE TO STIMULATION, ASLEEP

Case III UNRESPONSIVE TO STIMULATION, KNOCKED OUT

Case IV UNRESPONSIVE TO STIMULATION, DREAMING; also PSYCHOANALYTIC

MEANING

Case V UNRESPONSIVE TO STIMULATION, DAY-DREAMING

Case VI UNSENSING, SENSORY TRACT INCAPABLE OF CONVEYING STIMULI

Case VII UNSENSING, SUBLIMINAL STIMULI AFFECTING ORGANISM

Case VIII UNNOTICING or UNATTENDING

Case IX INSIGHTLESS

Case X INSIGHTLESS

Case XI INSIGHTLESS

Case XII UNREMEMBERING

Case XIII UNREMEMBERING

Case XIV UNABLE TO COMMUNICATE

Case XV ACTING INVOLUNTARILY

Case XVI UNABLE TO COMMUNICATE

Case XVII PSYCHOANALYTIC MEANING

CHAPTER III
THE APPROACH TO UNCONSCIOUSNESS

The manner of approaching the questions of unconsciousness
determines what their answers will be. We cannot proceed to the
facts without first considering what are the most suitable methods
for studying them.

The findings of both experimental and clinical procedures will
be consulted in our discussions in succeeding chapters. Besides the
usual problems of methodology which always arise when these
techniques are employed in dealing with any question, there are
four particular problems that insistently require attention in a treat-
ment of unconsciousness. These are: (a) May unconscious properly
mean more than one thing at the same time? () May unconscious-
ness be spoken of as an existing entity? (c) What is the validity of
introspection as a tool in the study of unconsciousness? And (d)
how can case histories be collated to give useful insight into the
various sorts of unconsciousness?

THE PROPRIETY OF MULTIPLE MEANINGS

The first principle of definition of words is to allow one word
only one meaning. Ambiguity may be poetical but it certainly is
not scientific. A collective noun, however, may properly stand for
more than one thing if it is clear what is the differentiating charac-
teristic of all members of the class to which the collective nouu
refers. So by unconscious states one might refer to a whole series
of conditions from absent-minded inattention through sleep to deep
anesthesia. Suppose it were generally agreed that unconsciousness is
the name for all states in which one does not talk or answer ques-
tions. Under those conditions the differentiating characteristic of
these states is known, and the collective usage is proper. If it is not
clear how these "unconscious" states are dissimilar to "conscious"

76 THE APPROACH TO UNCONSCIOUSNESS

states like snapping to attention, the criterion for distinguishing
must be explained. If no criterion infallibly serves to differentiate
"conscious" and "unconscious" states, a distinction cannot be made
and the collective usage is of no significance.

By a verbal legerdemain collective nouns, including the uncon-
scious, have been juggled to make it seem that propositions have
been proved true when they have not. Let us consider an example.
It is entirely permissible to employ one frequently used definition
of the unconscious the body of ideas which the individual cannot
put into words except under specific conditions like hypnosis or
psychoanalysis. Then we know accurately which ideas are uncon-
scious and which are not. Or, alternatively, since definitions are
arbitrary, one might say that the unconscious is made up of all ideas
that have been repressed because they were unpleasant. Here, too,
the defining characteristic is clear. It is also logically permissible
to combine these two definitions and to say that the unconscious is
made up of ideas which are repressed because they are unpleasant
and which also cannot be put into words except under specific
conditions like hypnosis or psychoanalysis. It would be unscientific,
however, if this last definition were the accepted one, to say that an
idea is unconscious if we know only that it is repressed because it
is unpleasant but do not know whether it can be put into words
only under specific conditions like hypnosis or psychoanalysis.

This is not a fictional example, for Definition 15 of Chapter I
states (p. 42) that unconscious (PSYCHOANALYTIC MEANING) processes
are (a) dynamically repressed away from consciousness, the "organ
of perception"; () available to consciousness only by special tech-
niques such as hypnosis and psychoanalysis; and (c) not under
voluntary control. The Freudian doctrine is that all unconscious
processes have this triple character. It is common practice for psy-
choanalysts, however, to call an idea or instinct unconscious if it
has one of these characteristics, and they do not submit any proof
that the other two characteristics are also concurrently present. This
procedure is unsatisfactory for one of two reasons: because uncon-
scious is used differently from the way it was defined [/>., to refer
to only one of the three characteristics (a), (b), and (r)], or because

THE REIFICATION OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS 77

the statement that something is unconscious lacks adequate sub-
stantiation, if the psychoanalytic meaning is intended. It is an open
question whether the Freudian doctrine that the three characteris-
tics (0), (), and (<r) are always found in unconscious (PSYCHO-
ANALYTIC MEANING) processes has ever been defended by an argu-
ment not involving this confused procedure.

The noun representing such a compound of several ideas is scien-
tifically entirely respectable, but it is a dangerous lure to such con-
fusion.

THE REIFICATION OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

An even greater danger in collective nouns is that as they are used
they tend gradually to be considered abstract nouns, which fre-
quently have the unhappy characteristic of giving the impression
that a fiction really exists.

If the super-ego of Freudian theory, for instance, is defined as
the sum of all the prohibitions which society places upon the indi-
vidual, it is a collective rather than an abstract noun, and is of
unquestionable scientific usefulness, being a shorthand representa-
tion in a single phrase of many social restrictions. It is in this sense
that most clinicians interpret the term, but some improperly go
farther and use super-ego as an abstract noun, the name for a force
or faculty in the personality. Whenever a collective noun repre-
senting the sum of a class of demonstrable entities undergoes meta-
morphosis into an abstract noun representing some power or poten-
tiality without empirical reference, it becomes a myth.

Abstractions are often mothered by necessity without the assistance
of any empirical evidence. Whenever an event occurs which cannot
be explained, even scientists often succumb to the temptation to
explain it by a polysyllabic abstraction, a metaphor, or a fairy tale.
LeDantec has observed 1 that, when faced with a natural phenome-
non, men frequently invent a "phenomenine" to explain it. In recent
years psychologists in general have become increasingly aware of

1 F. LeDantec, Le probleme de la mort et la conscience umverselle t Pans: Flammanon,
1917, 12.

78 THE APPROACH TO UNCONSCIOUSNESS

the dangers of misusing such explanatory abstractions. Ideally such
terms might perhaps serve to indicate the presence of an unsolved
problem, but actually soon after the words are introduced they
usually are employed as if they were names of actual entities of
proven existence instead of fictional, metaphorical hypotheses about
what might turn out to be the facts.

The "unconscious mind," as it is often interpreted, has become
one of the most notorious "phenomcnines" used to explain sundry
perplexing phenomena of human behavior. It has been observed
that: 2

The notion of the unconscious is the most prolific metaphor that
has as yet arisen in psychology. Nothing could be more stimulating
to the imagination than the realm of the unconscious as the Nibelheim
where the dark current of the repressed libido flows. Is it not from
here that the mists rise and becloud the horizon of the conscious?
They would indeed shroud it in eternal darkness, if it were not for
the salvation by the psycho-analytic Siegfried.

Ogden insisted 3 that such figures of speech are too stimulating
to the imagination, and that the unconscious and notions connected
with it, like the censor and the repressed complex, are a highly
dangerous series of metaphors. He believed that as psychology
advances such picturesque language will vanish, as did the metaphor
of force from all exact formulations of physics.

Though undoubtedly many who use the phrase the unconscious
mind do not mean by it any mental substance, power, or faculty,
it often is carelessly employed with some such meaning. Therefore
in order to evade such implications the author in this book will not
on his own authority refer to the unconscious mind or the uncon-
scious, but only to unconsciousness.

INTROSPECTION IN THE STUDY OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

An ideal scientific definition must be either ostensive or made in
terms of other ostensively defined words. Webster's dictionary says

2 H. K. Haeberlin, The concept of the unconscious, /. Philos., Psychol., and Set. Methods,
14, 1917, 544. By permission of the Journal of Philosophy.

3 C. K. Ogden, in a preface to E. v. Hartmann, Philosophy of the Unconscious, New
York: Harcourt, Brace, 1931, xv.

INTROSPECTION IN THE STUDY OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS 79

an ostensive definition is: "A definition accomplished by exhibiting
and characterizing the thing to be defined, or by pointing out and
characterizing the cases or instances to be covered." Perhaps some
fields, such as numismatics, can achieve this ideal, but it is not
possible in the psychological sciences.

Nevertheless we are told today by certain academic psychologists,
calling themselves operationists and behaviorists, that the only truly
scientific psychology is that which can fulfill this ideal. This doc-
trine has blossomed into an attack upon subjective report of events
which are not objectively demonstrable, and at present probably
the majority of academic psychologists seriously question the
validity of the data of introspection. 4

With this view psychological clinicians almost unanimously dis-
agree for two reasons: (a) because almost all psychotherapy is de-
pendent upon introspections of the patient; and (b) because the
medical tradition which ever lurks in the background of the psycho-
analysts and psychiatrists, though distinguishing when possible
between objective signs and the less reliable subjective symptoms,
nevertheless has largely depended on those symptoms in diagnosis.

When the subject matter is such that they are available, ostensive
definitions, pointing to the object which the word symbolizes, are
desirable because they lead to clear common understanding. How-
ever it is possible to refer to one's subjective experiences under cer-
tain objective conditions, and, if others have had experiences in like
circumstances, they may be assumed to be the same. This reference
to experience under identical conditions is the introspective analogue
of the ostensive definition.

For example, suppose that I say I have a tingling feeling when
rubbing my fingers over sandpaper. You do the same thing, admit*"
that you have a feeling, and agree to call it tingling. Then I say that
I have a tingling feeling in the back of my neck when parachute-
jumping, before pulling the ripcord. This is a meaningful state-
ment; it is public in reference, for others can corroborate it. In the

4 On the basis of his survey of academic publications, Allport confirms this. Cf. G. W.
Allport, The psychologist's frame of reference, Psychol. Bull. t 37, 1940, 12.

80 THE APPROACH TO UNCONSCIOUSNESS

future it may be valuable in explaining something about the nervous
system that mediates those feelings.

Again, suppose that individuals who take the drug mescal agree
that they see something soon afterward and agree to call it a
kaleidoscope of color. A kaleidoscope of color, then, is what you
see when you have taken mescal. This is almost an ostensive defi-
nition. Why should not this phrase referring to a subjective event
have as much validity as the name for some objective observation
which can be pointed to? If 99.3 per cent of all persons who take
mescal report that they see the colors first within fifteen minutes,
why should this not be a scientific fact? If all these 99.3 per cent
report seeing green (defined as the color of grass and leaves) first,
while the other 0.7 per cent, who took more than fifteen minutes
to see the colors, report violet first, would this not prove something ?
Procedures which exclude such data are as unsalutary to psycho-
logical investigation as are overstrict rules of admission of legal
evidence to the obtaining of justice.

What arguments have led many experimental psychologists to
deny themselves introspection, the most useful instrument of the
clinicians ? The first criticism of this technique has been its ineffec-
tiveness in the past. There is no doubt that opposition to introspec-
tion developed with the rise of the behaviorism of Watson because
of certain battles which had occurred in the traditional school.
There were arguments to which there seemed to be no possible
answer. An excellent example was the dispute between the Wiirz-
burg school, which believed that thinking could be carried on with-
out images, and their many opponents, who held that all thought
must be imageful. One group said: "I have images whenever I
think, and I never think without them." The Wiirzburg response
was: "I sometimes think without images." These were private mat-
ters of the introspectors, and there seemed to be no way of checking
either sort of statement.

It was usual for the experiments of the old introspectionists to be
done only upon trained subjects, who were unavoidably subject to
some influence of suggestion to make their observations in the light

INTROSPECTION IN THE STUDY OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS 81

of the doctrines of their school. For example, Perky, who reported
in 1910 an experiment from Titchener's laboratory, which was of
the introspectionist tradition, 5 believed it might be a defect in her
procedure that she used inexperienced subjects. She expected to be
criticized for what would today be considered the only carefully
controlled procedure, because naive subjects are less likely to have
preconceived ideas of how the experiment should come out.

The decline of introspectionism is thus in large part explained
by the overstrong motivation of its subjects to perceive what their
theory demanded, and by the consequent anarchy of disagreement.
We find today a like situation among many clinicians who employ
the introspective technique for instance, the various cliques of
depth psychology. Consequently we are beginning to hear the cry
of the newborn clinical behaviorists give us objective evidence
rather than subjective opinion.

The main dissatisfaction with introspection has not been theoret-
ical, although many such arguments have been made against it. The
primary criticism has been the great variability of the results of the
method. If data of high agreement and small probable error (statis-
tically determined) could be obtained by it, it would be in less
disrepute. Indeed there has been little complaint when introspec-
tion has been used in simple tasks, like the determination of a
limen (the point at which a stimulus is just sensed). However, when
it has been employed in more complex tasks, like the description
of the subjective experiences in solving a puzzle, it has borne the
blame for the large differences between individual subjects. When-
ever introspective methods bring agreement (as about the existence
of after-images) they are willingly accepted by all, but when they^
cause dispute (for instance, concerning the hues of colors seen by
normal and color-blind subjects) they have often been found want-
ing and cast aside.

The most insistently presented argument against introspection
today, championed by the operationists especially, is that science is
a public endeavor and that subjective experience is private, uncon-

B C. W. Perky, An experimental study of imagination, Amer. /. Psychol., 21, 1910, 432.

82 THE APPROACH TO UNCONSCIOUSNESS

firmable by others, and hence unscientific. As early as 1927 Pieron
expounded such an argument:

Science represents really a body of communicable experience. And,
therefore, because of its eminently social character, not only is it
unable to use anything of a unique and incommunicable character,
but it is not interested in anything which cannot be translated ob-
jectively into some perceptible form, which cannot become the object
of a collective experience, or constitute the source of social interactions.

It is true, nevertheless, that from the verbal and other behavior
of a human being it is possible to deduce accurately facts concerning
his private experience. An illustrative parable may be drawn from a
mythical automobile whose hood cannot be opened, and whose
mechanism therefore cannot be investigated, />., is private. The
driver knows nothing about the operation of the motor. On the
dashboard is an oil-flow gauge. The driver discovers that the rate
of flow increases on going up hill; decreases on going down; on a
level road varies with the speed of the car; and, after the car has
gone a thousand miles without the addition of new oil, is greater
when the car is traveling forty miles an hour than it was at first.
On this information can be based important deductions about the
operation of the "private" machinery. In like manner words used
in introspection to describe the privacy of the individual can come
to have public significance. Such words are anger, image, happy,
and even conscious and unconscious.

If the observer has had the subjective experience to which a word
refers, it will be easier for him to understand the words of subjec-
tive report, which some academicians have called "meaningless."
Nevertheless by extrapolation from similar events it is possible to
have insight into subjective experiences of others which one has
never had. Men in general believe women experience pain in child-
birth. A man who suggested that this is not true and that women
in a great conspiracy of the centuries have fostered this belief to
gain sympathy for themselves would be suspect of paranoia. Yet

H. Pieron, La psychologic comme science du comportement ct le behaviorisme, /. de
Psychol., 24, 1927, 95. (Author's translation.)

INTROSPECTION IN THE STUDY OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS 83

there is no objective reference for that pain, and, since most scien-
tists are men, the majority of the scientific world has not experi-
enced it. The acceptance of this pain as a fact, therefore, must be
based on two sorts of operationally unscientific evidence: (a)
analogy when suffering it women behave comparably to the way
the men scientists themselves do when they have pain; or () intro-
spection they must put faith in the word of women concerning
something which is not open to investigation by the public of men.

In accepting any fact the body of scientists must put faith in one
or more persons, and similar faith can lead to the penetration of
privacy. Every scientist cannot repeat every experiment, but in most
things he must believe that the report of a single experimenter or
group of them is true unless he finds grounds for questioning it.
Psychology must rest corresponding confidence in introspectors in
order to gain the important evidence which can come only by this
method. Strictly, if anyone is antisocial, his privacy is his own.
Practically, introspective report is a way of penetrating privacy, and
it depends on trust in colleagues, which, however, may well be
seasoned with skepticism.

Two pitfalls are more likely to trap users of the introspective
method than those who employ objective extraspection. (a) In
introspection the temptation is always greater to use abstract nouns
which refer to neither subjective nor objective phenomena than it
is in extraspection, where the data are all objectively demonstrable.
This does not mean this mistake cannot be made in extraspection.
(b) What Jowett has called 7 "the amount of good hard lying that
goes on in the world" is good reason to doubt introspection, espe-
cially of neurotics. Frequently the introspector finds his personal
reputation or interest better served by giving one report rather than
another. Whether because the opportunity is better or the motiva-
tion is greater, there has always been more falsification in intro-
spection than in extraspection. Even in objective experimentation,

7 Cf. G. C. Field, F. Avchng, and J. Laird, Is the conception of the unconscious of value
in psychology?, Mind, 31, 1922, 422.

84 THE APPROACH TO UNCONSCIOUSNESS

however, it is possible for the data to be incorrectly observed,
recorded, or interpreted.

Despite the doubts about the validity of introspection, it has not
disappeared from experimental psychology. Many recent investiga-
tions which have employed it are mentioned in later chapters.
Lengthy descriptions of subjective states or of the stream of con-
sciousness have passed out of modern psychology, and this change
has been of benefit to the science, for such detailed protocols often
contained statements which could not be accurately understood
even by other introspectionists because of the uncertainty about what
the words meant. 8 However, much precise work has been and is
still being done by the method of subjective report. As Pratt has
noted, if an impartial jury were to examine the research of two
outstanding scientists, of whom one devoted a large part of his time
to investigating subjective sensations while the other studied objec-
tive reflexes take Helmholtz and Pavlov the verdict would have
to be that the researches of both men are of admitted excellence and
accuracy.

Though neurophysiologists supposedly approximate more closely
than psychologists the proprieties of scientific technique, they have
been willing to accept introspective evidence without question. In
determining the functional localization of the cerebral cortex, 10
for instance, it has been the practice to apply electrodes to small
areas of the human brain which have been laid open. The patient
is then asked what his sensations are and where they seem to be
localized, as in the hand or the foot or the knee. The subjective
report of this method has not been questioned, perhaps because
there has been good agreement among patients.

Methods have been employed in experimental psychology which
enter into the privacy of the individual and are not subject to public
verification, but which are not strictly introspective. There has been
no hue and cry concerning the respectability of these. Many ques-

8 For example, cf. the introspective description of "pre-sensations" in F. R. Bichowsky,
The mechanism of consciousness: pre-sensation, Amer. /. Psychol., 36, 1925, 588-9.
9 C. C. Pratt, The Logic of Modern Psychology, New York: Macmillan, 1939, 50-1.
10 One example of this is the work of W. Penfield illustrated by Case XV of Chapter II.

INTROSPECTION IN THE STUDY OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS 85

tionnaires on personal opinions fall into this category. An example
is the recent questionnaire on marital happiness developed by Ter-
man and co-workers. 11 In it elaborate precautions were taken to
preserve the subjects' anonymity, so that any checks on whether
they were telling the truth, which might have been obtained from
even such uncertain indices as hesitation, facial expression, and so
forth, were lost. No one can measure what percentage of those
answering such questionnaires tell the truth; all that anyone can
do is hope that only an insignificant number falsify. Especially if
sexual questions are asked, as in the test of marital happiness, this
hope is by no means sure. Academic psychologists who condemn
subjective report, however, have welcomed such questionnaires,
even though they constitute an attempt to penetrate private experi-
ence. In this acceptance such psychologists do well, for, like intro-
spection, these questionnaires when guardedly used can yield val-
uable data.

Our investigation of unconscious behavior must employ introspec-
tion, for we shall be faced with problems like the following: (a)
Most citizens of Japan refuse by sign or word to admit doubt that
their Mikado is a god. Their behavior in national crises depends
not upon what they say but upon what they really think about this
political dogma. It would be useful to the premier and to the social
psychologists to know their private opinions. Introspection of some
sort a meaningful word or gesture under peculiarly intimate con-
ditions would be the only way of determining the real attitude
of a Japanese on this matter and hence of predicting his behavior.
() A woman does not speak to a former good friend of hers who
passes her in a hotel lobby. It is important in understanding the
future behavior of this woman toward the other to find out whether
she really saw her and refused to acknowledge the fact, or whether
she was unaware of her. This information can be gained only by
introspection. Any adequate treatment of the difference between

11 L. M. Tcrman ct al., Psychological Factors in Marital Happiness, New York: McGraw-
Hill, 1938.

86 THE APPROACH TO UNCONSCIOUSNESS

conscious and unconscious behavior in human beings must rely
on introspection to make public the privacies of these human beings.

THE COLLATION OF CASE HISTORIES IN THE
STUDY OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

The collation of case histories is a clinical method which, properly
carried out, can confirm theories just as adequately as the experi-
mental method. The laboratory's almost idolatrous regard for the
controlled experiment is reflected in the following remark: 12

But even if one swallow may mean that summer is on the way,
a whole flock of case histories cannot prove a theory. . . . Case his-
tories give valuable hints as to what lines of investigation should be
followed, but in themselves they are worthless as far as establishing
functional dependence is concerned.

A single case cannot determine a general law, just as a single
event in a person's life cannot serve as sufficient basis for prediction
of his typical reaction in such situations. The comparative analysis
of cases, particularly statistical analysis, however, makes the case-
history method practicable. Statistical analysis of many cases has
proved of great value in medicine. Studies of a thousand juvenile
delinquents by Sheldon Glueck and Eleanor Glucck, 13 showing
among other things the effect on delinquency of environment and
certain kinds of treatment, are examples of successful application
of similar analysis to psychology.

It is easy to interpret improperly the data of case histories. Some-
times the conditions of a single case will be such that it can be
interpreted in only one way. Usually, though, several cases must be
adduced if a theory is to be proved, and each of them must be care-
fully controlled. To illustrate this let us consider in some detail
Freud's famous case of the forgetting of the proper name Signor-

12 C. C. Pratt, op. >., 163-4. By permission of The Macmillan Company, publishers.

13 S. and E. T. Glucck, One Thousand ]uvemle Delinquents, Cambridge: Harvard Uni-
versity Press, 1934; also S. and E. Glueck, ]uvemle Delinquents Grown Up, New York:
Commonwealth Fund, 1940.

COLLATION OF CASE HISTORIES 87

elli. 14 It was his own experience which he reported: "I vainly
strove to recall the name of the master who made the imposing
frescoes of the 'Last Judgment' in the dome of Orvieto. Instead of
the lost name Signorelli two other names of artists Botticelli
and Boltraffio obtruded themselves, names which my judgment
immediately and definitely rejected as being incorrect." He then
proceeded to examine the associations which led him to think of
these latter names instead of the proper one. After considering the
conversation in which the forgetting occurred, he decided that "this
forgetting then made itself known as a disturbance of the newly
emerging theme caused by the theme preceding it?

This preceding theme of his discussion had concerned the customs
of the Turks living in Bosnia and Herzegovina. He had told his
companion that when the Turks learn from their doctor that there
is no hope for a patient, they answer: "Sir (Herr), what can I say?
I know that if he could be saved, you would save him." Freud
then chose from these sentences the words Bosnia, Herzegovina,
and Herr as intermediates in the association series between Signorclli
and Botticelli and Boltraffio. He did not explain why he chose these
words, or why these words were important in his mind rather than
other words in the conversation, as for instance the word Turf(S.

Freud went on to say that he assumed that the reason the
thoughts concerning the customs of the Turks in Bosnia, etc., dis-
turbed him was that he wanted to tell a second story about the
Turks which came to his mind. He had refrained from doing this
because of the indelicacy of telling it to a comparative stranger.
The doctor who had told Freud the first anecdote about the Turks
had informed him that they "value sexual pleasure above all else*
and at sexual disturbances merge into an utter despair which
strangely contrasts with their resignation at the peril of losing their
lives." One of this doctor's patients had once told him: "For you
know, Sir (Herr), if that ceases, life no longer has any charm."

14 S. Freud, The Basic Writings of Sigmund Freud, cd. A. A. Brill, New York: Random
House, 1938 (Psychopathology of Everyday Life), 35 ff. By permission of Random House,
Inc.

88 THE APPROACH TO UNCONSCIOUSNESS

Freud believed that he kept from relating the second story to his
companion not only because of its impropriety, but also because it
dealt with the theme of death and sexuality, which he repressed
from consciousness.

Recently Freud had had a patient who committed suicide because
of an incurable sexual disturbance, and Freud had learned about it
while he was in Trafoi. He was certain that he did not consciously
recollect this event, which dealt with the death and sexuality theme,
while he was carrying on the conversation in which the forgetting
of the word Signorelli occurred. He stated, however, that "the
agreement between Trafoi and Boltraffio forces me to assume that
this reminiscence was at that time brought into activity despite all
the intentional deviation of my attention." He wrote, "I can no
longer conceive the forgetting of the name Signorelli as an acci-
dental occurrence. I must recognize in this process the influence
of a motive" He believed the reason he forgot the word against
his will was that he desired to forget the anecdote about the Turks,
and the connection it had with the forbidden thoughts on death
and sexuality.

Though remarking that at first sight there seems to be no connec-
tion between the name "Signorelli" and the repressed content about
Herzegovina, Bosnia, and the Turks, which had immediately pre-
ceded in the conversation, Freud noted that the Her in Herzegovina
and the Herr in the Turk's question to the doctor, "Sir (Herr),
what can I say, etc.?," may be translated into Italian by the word
signor. Moreover the elli part of Signorelli was repeated in Botticelli,
and further Botticelli and Boltraffio both begin with the same sound
as Bosnia. Finally, just as Herr, the first word in the Turk's state-
ment referred to the repressed thoughts of death and sexuality, so
Freud believed that traffio in Boltraffio referred to Trafoi where
he had had the recent unpleasant experience related to death and
sexuality.

It seemed to Freud that all this proves that when one is uncon-
scious (UNREMEMBERING) of proper names the forgetting can be
explained by repression, of which this case is an example. It must

COLLATION OF CASE HISTORIES 89

be admitted that the relationships which he traced are striking, but
the situation is entirely uncontrolled. We may ask why this is not
a case of "simple forgetting of proper names," a mechanism which
Freud recognized as well as repression from consciousness. 15 Is it
not satisfactory to explain the names Freud mentioned by saying
he tried to fill his memory gap by enumerating Italian painters
with names somewhat like the one he had forgotten? And could
not the words Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Herr have entered his
thoughts because he had used them so recently and they were still
running through his head ? Why do they need to indicate anything
about repression?

Though this situation is not decisive, events could occur which
would differentiate convincingly between "simple forgetting" and
repression. Suppose, for instance, that the word forgotten was one
which, unlike Signorelli, would according to the classic laws of
memory be remembered because of some special emphasis given it
recency, frequency, intensity, or primacy of use. If then the patient
forgets the word when it is connected with one particular sort of
situation, the suspicion is aroused that it is being repressed. If sev-
eral events show he always forgets it in like circumstances and
remembers it in all others, the evidence would become convincing.
For greater certainty it would be desirable that the relationship
between the thoughts the patient represses and the words he forgets
be more direct than in the Signorelli case.

The interpretation of the connection by sound which Freud made
is undoubtedly clever, and such machinations may well occur in a
complicated personality; but, as the Signorelli case was related, the
explanation of the events by "simple forgetting" is so much more
likely than the one Freud gave that it was unwise for him to
depend on this case as a foundation stone in his proof that repression
occurs.

A much better controlled case is the following, originally reported
by Ferenczi, and summarized by Freud. 10 A woman could not

40.
53-

90 THE APPROACH TO UNCONSCIOUSNESS

remember the name of the psychiatrist Jung (meaning Young in

English). The following names occurred to her instead: Kl ,

Wilde, Nietzsche, and Hauptmann. The psychoanalyst conducting
the interview did not tell her the name, but asked her to give free
associations to each of these names. In connection with each she
made references to youth "she does not age," "occupied with
young people," and "youth." One free association reported "hat"
seemed to have no connection. Only when, finally, her attention
was called to the word "youth" did she realize that she was trying
to remember the name Jung.

If, as the report implies, these are the protocols of a single session
and detail all the conversation and not selected parts which were
chosen by the psychoanalyst because they happen to contain the
proper words, this is significant evidence of repression. The con-
trolling factors are: (a) the psychoanalyst knew the word which
the patient had forgotten; (b) every free association except one led
directly to the word which she could not remember; (c) she actually
reported that word without realizing it was the proper one; and
(d) as soon as the psychoanalyst called to her attention the word
she had used, she immediately recognized it, thus showing she
really remembered it.

It is difficult to obtain evidence of as complicated a mechanism as
repression, but it is a greater problem to understand the motive
behind it. On this question the case we have just studied throws
no light whatsoever, and Freud spoke without sufficient proof when
he said: 17 "It is clear that this lady, who had lost her husband at
the age of thirty-nine, and had no prospect of marrying a second
time, had cause enough to avoid reminiscences recalling youth or
old age." It might well be possible to find substantiation for such
a deduction in the life of the woman, but there is no hint of it in
the data presented to us.

The case history method can be as accurate a way of studying
phenomena of unconsciousness, like repression, as is experimenta-
tion. Often a single case can give more fundamental understanding

17 Ibid. By permission of Random House, Inc.

CONCLUSIONS 91

of such processes than any artificially arranged experiment. The
same careful critique must be applied to it, however, as the labora-
tory techniques have undergone.

CONCLUSIONS

Four principles of procedure have been outlined in this chapter
which will be adhered to in the following pages, (a) Whether
unconscious bears a single or a compound meaning, the sense in
which it is used must always be specified, and it must be demonstra-
ble that the criteria for that sort of unconsciousness are fulfilled.
It is unfair to change meanings of the word in midstream without
due warning. () The fact that one can speak of unconsciousness
does not mean that "the unconscious" or "the unconscious mind"
is an existing entity. To avoid such reification we shall not use these
last two controversial phrases, (c) Introspective findings may be as
valid as those of objective observation, and both sorts are essential
to a full knowledge of unconscious processes. And (d) the study
of numerous controlled case histories can lead to as correct and
satisfactory understanding of unconsciousness as can experimenta-
tion.

CHAPTER IV
NEUROPHYSIOLOGY OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

Often debated but still ground for disagreement is the problem
of whether unconscious processes are "merely the physiological
operation of the nervous system," or whether there are "actual
mental images" which are for the time being outside the experience
of the individual. Psychoanalysts and depth psychologists in general
have consistently maintained that unconscious mental processes and
physiological functions must not be equated. 1 These clinicians find
strange bedfellows in a group of experimentalists who believe that
the present knowledge of neurophysiology does not justify attempts
to explain psychological processes in neural terms. This latter group
is convinced that all psychological activities are mediated by the
nervous system, but they hold that the psychological and physio-
logical methods should be kept separate, and for this reason would
not equate unconscious processes with functions of the nervous
system. McGeoch spoke for them when he said: 2 "The wisdom of
foregoing the speculative delights of the nervous system for the
world of experiment ... is at least defensible."

A large group of psychologists, however, insists that conscious
and unconscious processes may be significantly interpreted in terms
of our present understanding of the operation of the nervous sys-
tem. It has frequently been suggested that one part of the nervous
system mediates consciousness while another or others mediate
unconscious functions. One of the best known neural dichotomies
of this sort is that between the cerebral cortex, controlling conscious-
ness, and the thalamus, mediating unconscious (UNLEARNED or IN-
HERITED) processes. 3

1 E.g., S. Freud, The Basic Writings of Sigmund Freud, ed. A. A. Brill, New York:
Random House (The Interpretation of Dreams), 541.

2 J. A. McGeoch, Forgetting and the law of disuse, Psychol. Rev., 39, 1932, 369.
8 Cf. J. Jastrow, The House that Freud Built, New York: Grccnbcrg, 1932, 164.

CONDITIONING AND CONSCIOUSNESS 93

It has been said 4 that as psychology progresses its explanations
must be fitted more and more into a framework of physiology.
Let us see what evidence there is which can be the basis for develop-
ing a physiological interpretation of the distinction between con-
scious and unconscious functions.

CONDITIONING AND CONSCIOUSNESS

Three of the definitions of unconscious in Chapter I have to do
with conditioned responses. It was noted (pp. 27-28) that an individ-
ual is often said to be unconscious (UNDISCRIMINATINC) when he can-
not be conditioned, for he does not learn to respond to the various
aspects of his environment in different ways. One of the con-
tributing arguments for this position has been based upon Pavlov's
contention that the cortex is necessary for conditioning. Proper
functioning of the cortex has been thought by many to be essential
for consciousness. By a loose logic consciousness and conditioned
responses have been therefore connected.

Since conditioned responses are a kind of memory, a person in
which they could not be formed would be unconscious also in
another sense (UNREMEMBERING).

A third, less important use of unconscious (CONDITIONED) is con-
tradictory to the above two meanings, which make the uncondi-
tioned unconscious. This is a case of out-and-out disagreement on
the subject of unconsciousness which has resulted from different
theoretical presuppositions. Some have held the assumption that
mental processes (which to them means consciousness) cannot be
equated with neural functions. Thence they have argued 5 that since
conditioned responses have often been given a purely neurophysie-
logical explanation, they must be unconscious (NOT MENTAL). This
line of reasoning usually is illustrated by reference to automatic
actions, like kissing one's wife goodbye in the morning, which has
been conditioned to the spatiotemporal pattern of wife and front

4 C. C. Pratt, The Logic of Modern Psychology, New York: Macmillan, 1939, 131-2.
*E.g., G. Murphy, L. B. Murphy, and T. M. Ncwcomb, Experimental Social Psychology,
New York: Harper, rev. ed., 1937, 181.

94 NEUROPHYSIOLOGY OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

door at 8:11 in the morning. They are conditioned responses unac-
companied by subjective awareness of them, and therefore, runs
the argument, merely physiological, unconscious. In Chapter VII
this general position is considered and an analysis is made of the
bifurcation of mental and physical implied in this interpretation of
automatic actions.

Is the cerebral cortex necessary for the development of conditioned
responses? The answer to this question is most important in deter-
mining the localization in the nervous system of conscious (DIS-
CRIMINATING or REMEMBERED) processes, because three senses of con-
scious and unconscious have to do with conditioning and because
many who have been influenced by Pavlov consider that conscious-
ness is the same as conditioned responses. The following statement
by Pavlov orients us in his approach to the matter:

Consciousness appears as a nervous activity of a certain part of
the cerebral hemispheres, possessing at the given moment under the
present conditions a certain optimal (probably moderate) excitabil-
ity. ... In the region of the brain where there is optimal excita-
bility, new conditioned reflexes are easily formed, and differentiation
is successfully developed. That area is at the given moment the cre-
ative part of the hemispheres. The outlying parts with their decreased
irritability arc incapable of such performance, and their functions at
best concern the previously elaborated reflexes arising in a stereo-
typed manner in the presence of the corresponding stimuli. The ac-
tivity of these areas is subjectively described as unconscious, auto-
matic. The area of optimal activity is, of course, not fixed; on the
contrary it is perpetually migrating over the whole extent of the
hemispheres. . . .

If we could look through the skull into the brain of a consciously
thinking person, and if the place of optimal excitability were lumi-
nous, then we should see playing over the cerebral surface, a bright
spot with fantastic, waving borders constantly fluctuating in size and
form, surrounded by a darkness more or less deep, covering the rest
of the hemispheres.

This statement shows that Pavlov specifically equated the forma-

6 1. P. Pavlov, Lectures on Conditioned Reflexes, trans. W. H. Gantt, New York: Inter-
national, 1928, 221-2. By permission of International Publishers.

CONDITIONING AND CONSCIOUSNESS 95

tion of conditioned responses with consciousness. From this point
of view, if the cerebral hemispheres are not excited so that condi-
tioned responses are being formed or can easily be formed, the indi-
vidual is unconscious (UNAWARE OF DISCRIMINATION). Also, as we have
mentioned, Pavlov concluded from experiments, 7 though "with the
utmost reserve," that the cortex is essential for forming conditioned
responses. His followers have by no means always maintained the
reserve of their leader in preaching this doctrine. Certainly then,
since he considered that conditioned responses which have already
been formed may function even if the individual is unconscious
(UNAWARE OF DISCRIMINATION) of them, Pavlov would have to main-
tain a fortiori that no other parts of the nervous system are capable
of mediating consciousness. The functions of most of the cerebral
cortex at any one time and of all the rest of the nervous system at
all times are thus unconscious (UNAVAILABLE TO AWARENESS), as he
interpreted the facts.

The following is the chief evidence that supports Pavlov's belief
that conditioned responses cannot be formed outside the cortex.

(a) A large series of experiments by workers of Pavlov's school
was interpreted* to show that if the cortical projection area of one
of the senses is ablated, conditioned responses dependent on that
sense disappear and cannot be made to reappear. Let us consider,
for example, a dog which has been conditioned to salivate to a
green light (but not to a red light) by the method of feeding him
meat thirty seconds after each time the green light is flashed on,
but never when the red light shines. Suppose now that we cut out
this animal's cortical projection areas for vision, which arc in the
occipital lobes. After this ablation the dog is still able to distinguish
light from dark and to avoid objects which obstruct his path, but
he cannot differentiate colors. 9 The researches of Pavlov's students
showed that conditioned salivation to the green light in this dog
will also disappear and cannot be redeveloped. Normal function of

7 1. P. Pavlov, Conditioned Reflexes, trans. G. V. Anrcp, Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1927, 330.

8 I. P. Pavlov, Lectures on Conditioned Reflexes. 193-204.

96 NEUROPHYSIOLOGY OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

the cortical projection area for whatever particular sense is involved
in the conditioned response was, on account of these findings, pre-
sumed to be essential for that response to occur.

() Work by Allen 10 has led to the conclusion that the integrity
of the excitable cortex in at least one hemisphere is required to
establish a constant and specific olfactory conditioned response, but
this research did not eliminate the thalamus as a possible center for
a low order of olfactory conditioning.

(c) Zeliony investigated the effect of total decerebration on condi-
tioned responses. In an article published in I929, 11 dealing with
research performed between 1910 and 1916, he reported that he
was unable to establish in two decerebrate dogs any reactions which
he could be certain were conditioned responses. Although he
attempted in one animal for nearly two years and for seven hundred
trials to condition salivation to sound, he was unsuccessful.

Despite all these findings, so much evidence has accumulated
opposing Pavlov's position that now it is practically certain that
the cortex is not needed for conditioning.

(a) Foley has reasoned 12 that the cortex is not necessary because
embryonic organisms without mature neo-cortices have been condi-
tioned. He asked, moreover, why, if conditioning is a function of
the cortex, it is possible to develop conditioned reflexes in lower
animals that possess no cortex. 13 The first of these arguments cannot
be put aside easily, although it loses a good deal of its cogency
because of the difficulty of proving when the embryonic neo-cortex
becomes functionally mature. The second argument is invalid be-
cause it takes no account of the facts of encephalization that in
the phylogenetic development of the nervous system many func-

10 W. F. Allen, Relationship of the conditioned olfactory-foreleg response to the motor
centers of the brain, Amer. J. Physiol., 121, 1938, 657-68.

11 G. Zehony, EfTets dc Tablation dcs hemispheres cerebraux, Rev. dc Mid., 46, 1929,
191-214.

12 J. P. Folcy, Jr., The cortical interpretation of conditioning, /. Gen. Psychol., 9,
1933, 228-34.

"This sort of conditioning has been demonstrated by J. Ten Gate, in Konnen die
bcdingtcn Reaktionen sich auch ausserhalb dcr Grosshirnrinde bilden ? , Arch. Neetl.
Physiol., 19, 1934, 469-80.

CONDITIONING AND CONSCIOUSNESS 97

tions have shifted from the more primitive centers in the lower
animals to newer and higher centers in the higher- animals.

() In 1931, Gemelli and Pastori 14 reported experiments in which
hens were taught to peck grain from a box of a certain color.
After ablation of at least part of the cortical tissue, these animals
still showed a preference for that color, although their accomplish-
ment was inferior to their preoperative achievement. This result
has been interpreted as persistence of conditioning after decortica-
tion, but the work is of little value because of the uncertainty about
the amount of cortex extirpated.

(c) Zeliony reversed his opinion that the cortex is necessary for
conditioning after work which he did with Poltyrev in 1929.
They succeeded in developing what they considered conditioning
to sound and discrimination reactions in a dog having most of its
cortex ablated. Exactly how much had been removed, however, is
uncertain.

(d) In careful investigations Culler, Mettler, and co-workers 10
have repeatedly succeeded in conditioning dogs in which only a
few shreds of cortex, most probably nonfunctional, were present.
Shurrager and Culler 17 have also conditioned dogs with only the
spinal cord functioning. The basic findings of this work seem con-
clusively demonstrated.

(<?) Ten Gate 18 has also obtained subcortical conditioning in high
mammals.

In the light of all this successful conditioning it may be said that
consciousness, as defined by the criterion of conditionability, is not

14 A. Gcmclh and G. Pastori, Sulla neducabilita di animah sccrcbrati, Pubbl. Univ.
Cattol. d. S. Ctwrcy 6, 1931, 565-77 (not viewed).

15 S. S. Poltyrev and G. P. Zeliony, Dcr Hund ohnc Grosshirn, Amer. f. Physiol., 90?
1929, 475-6.

10 E. Culler and F. A. Mettler, Conditioned behavior in a decorticate dog, /. Comp.
Psychol., 1 8, 1934, 291-303. Also E. Girdcn, F. A. Mettler, G. Finch, and E. Culler, Con-
ditioned responses in a decorticate dog to acoustic, thermal, and tactile stimulation, /. Comp.
Psychol., 21, 1936, 367-85.

17 P. S. Shurrager and E. A. Culler, Phenomena allied to conditioning in the spinal dog,
Amer. J. Phystol^ 123, 1938, 186-7.

18 J. Ten Gate, he. cit.; also Akustische und optischc Rcaktioncn dcr Katzcn nach
teilwcisen und totalen Exstirpationen dcs Ncopalhums, Arch. Nccrl. Physiol., 19, 1934,
191-264.

98 NEUROPHYSIOLOGY OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

necessarily mediated by the cortex. There are, moreover, some hints,
not yet conclusive, that it may be possible to develop cortical and
subcortical conditioning in the same animal. Girden and Culler
found 19 that, despite what is generally regarded as complete loss
of function resulting from the administration of curare, an iso-
lated leg muscle of a dog responds with a slight twitch to a shock
delivered to that limb. Such responses can be conditioned to a bell,
but, after the effects of the drug have worn off, the conditioning
is found to have disappeared. It reappears if the animal is again
curarized. A conditioned response set up in the normal state, on
the other hand, disappears after curarization, but reappears when
the effect of the drug wears off.

On the basis of data which indicate, though not conclusively,
that curare depresses cortical activity, Girden and Culler devel-
oped 20 an hypothesis which they thought best explained their find-
ings. They argued that since the function of the cortex of an animal
under curare appears to be depressed, any conditioning which the
animal shows must be subcortical. When, after the effects of the
curare wear off, the cortex again is dominant, the subcortical con-
ditioning is inhibited. Because conditioning in a normal animal is
mainly cortical, such conditioned responses disappear under curare,
for it inhibits cortical activity. This hypothesis springs from few
facts, although it explains what facts there are adequately. It indi-
cates that a single animal can develop several levels of discrimina-
tion, conditioning, or, from Pavlov's point of view, consciousness.

Since it has been demonstrated that certain anesthetic drugs de-
press or inhibit cortical action, the effect of these agents upon con-
ditioning is a question directly related to the issues we are consider-
ing. Several investigators 21 have studied experimentally the effect

19 E. Girdcn and E. Culler, Conditioned responses in curarized stnate muscle in dogs,
/. Comp. Psyc/iol., 23, 1937, 261-74. Cf. also E. Culler, J. D. Coaklcy, P. S. Shurragcr,
H. W Adcs, Differential effects of curare upon higher and lower levels of the central
nervous system, Amcr. J. PsychoL, 52, 1939, 266-73.

20 E. Grdcn and E. Culler, op. at., 273-4.

21 1. V. Zavadski, Trans. Soc. Russian Physicians, St. Petersburg, 1908. P. M. Niki-
forovski, Thesis, St. Petersburg, 1910, 131-69. L. A. Andreyev, The effect of single and
repeated doses of alcohol on conditioned reflexes in the dog, Arch. Internal, de Pharma-
codyn. ct Thcrap., 48, 1934, 117-28. H. G. Wolff and W. H. Gantt, Caffeine sodiobenzoate,
sodium iso-amylethyl barbiturate, sodium bromide and chloral hydrate effect on the highest

CONDITIONING AND CONSCIOUSNESS 99

of various drugs on conditioning which has already been set up,
and have found that several of them inhibit or disinhibit condi-
tioned responses already developed. The first attempt to condition
animals actually under anesthesia, however, was made by Scttlage
in I936. 22 He conditioned flexion of the hind leg (caused by electric
shock) to sound in twelve cats which were in a light state of depres-
sion following upon injections of the barbiturate, sodium amytal.
Though the conditioning could be developed at this level, the
responses could not be elicited until the effect of the drug had worn
off. The lowest level of anesthesia at which Settlage conditioned
his cats was apparently not especially deep, for he said" 3 that the
animals at that level would seek food and cat it, and would spon-
taneously walk about. They seemed, however, to lie down and
assume an attitude of sleep more readily than cats usually do.

Cats have been conditioned by Sterling and the author 4 at a
considerably deeper level, using sodium evipal anesthesia. In this
work, too, it was impossible to get a response while the drug had
effect, but the response developed after the anesthesia was over. The
cats during the conditioning were unable to stand or walk, and
were at so deep a level that in some cases the normal flexion of the
leg to a painful stimulus such as a pinch of the paw was entirely
gone.

It is interesting to consider whether the cats in these last two ex-
periments, being unconscious from the point of view of Definition
2 (ANESTHETIZED, UNRESPONSIVE TO STIMULATION), were, functionally
speaking, temporarily decorticate. Bcecher and McDonough's study
of electrical waves from the cortex during anesthesia 25 indicated

intcgrativc functions, Arch. Ncwol. and Psychiaf., 33, 1933, 1030-57. W. II. Gantt, Eflect
of alcohol on cortical and subcortical activity measured by the conditioned reflex method,
Bull. Johns Hopkins Hosp., 56, 1935, 61-83 And S. Dworkm, W. Bourne, and B. B.
Ragmsky, Changes in conditioned responses brought about by anesthetics and sedatives,
Can. Med. Assoc. /., 37, 1937, 136-9.

22 T. Scttlage, The efTcct of sodium amytal on the formation and elicitation of conditioned
reflexes, /. Comp. PsychoL, 22, 1936, 339-43.

23 //W., 342.

2t K. Sterling and J. G. Miller, Conditioning under anesthesia, Amcr. /. Psychol., 54, 1941,
92-101.

26 H. K. Bcecher and , K. McDonough, Cortical action potentials during anesthesia,
/. Ncttrvphytivl., 2, ig^Q, 289-307.

100 NEUROPHYSIOLOGY OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

that these animals most likely were not temporarily decorticate.
These workers found that, though under deep evipal anesthesia
stimuli do not affect cortical potentials, nevertheless these voltages,
which represent some sort of cortical action, are still there. The
specific conditioning of the eyelids in Sterling and the author's
anesthetized cats was not like the diffuse responses of Culler and
Mettler's L>G decorticate dog. This fact proves further that, though
the animals were under anesthesia, they were not functionally de-
corticate. We sec therefore that animals can be conditioned when
they are anesthetized as well as when their cortices are extirpated,
but that these two conditions are not functionally equivalent.

In summary, the experimental data dealing with conditioning
and consciousness show:

(a) That conditioning can take place in other parts of the
nervous system than the cortex even in the spinal cord;

() That, if conditioned responses are evidences of consciousness,
then consciousness is not mediated solely by the cortex;

(c) That it may be possible to develop conditioning (conscious-
ness from Pavlov's point of view) at more than one level of the
nervous system at the same time;

(d) And that the two senses of unconscious, UNDISCRIMINATING
or UNREMEMBERINO, i.e., not showing conditioned responses, and
ANESTHETIZED, UNRESPONSIVE TO STIMULATION, are conflicting, for
animals are conditionable even when anesthetized.

THE CEREBRUM AND THE LOCALIZATION OF
CONSCIOUSNESS

In our consideration of conditioning we have entered well into
the problem of the localization in the nervous system of conscious
and unconscious (ANY MEANING) processes. There are two general
positions taken on this question: (a) that consciousness is mediated
by some part of the central nervous system (the brain and the spinal
cord) and () that it is localized somewhere in the peripheral
nerves and other organs of the body. At present the former theory

20 E. Culler and F. A. Mettler, loc. tit.

CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE CEREBRUM 101

is far more widely held, though often for reasons not adequately
grounded in evidence. 27 There are good bases, however, for the
contention that consciousness is connected with the cortex.

(a) There is, for example, such research on electrical stimulation
of the cortex in conscious patients as was carried out by Gushing. 28
These patients indicate by verbal report consciousness of a number
of kinds of sensations referred to various parts of the body when-
ever the postcentral area of the cortex is stimulated. In such work
it is difficult to exclude the possibility that the neurone stimulated
may convey impulses to other centers which may be the real seats
of consciousness rather than the cortex.

(b) Loucks 1 ' 9 was able to condition salivary and muscular
responses in dogs to electrical stimulation of the cortical sensory
areas. From this result one might reason that sensory consciousness
is in the cortex, but, as in Cushing's work, one cannot control spread
of the impulses to other regions of the brain.

(c) Studies of electroencephalograms and cortical potentials also
bear on the problem in hand. Gibbs and Davis, 30 for instance,
examined the brain waves in unconsciousness (UNRESPONSIVE TO
STIMULATION) from sleep, from breathing nitrogen, from over-
breathing oxygen, and in epilepsy, and discovered that at the onset
of these states there is a decrease in frequency of certain waves and
a change in their amplitude. Also studying brain waves and com-
paring them with subjects' introspections, Travis'*' 1 learned that

27 E.g., the insistence of O. L. Reiser, in Evolution, consciousness and electricity, Psyche,
12, 1931, 75, that consciousness is in the brain; the assumption of J. Agerberg, m Con-
sciousness as a physiological function, Actu Psyihiat. ct N enrol., 4, 1929, 104, that the
cerebral cortex LS the organ of consciousness; and the suggestion of J. H. Jackson, in Tlic^
Crooman lectures on evolution and dissolution of the nervous system, Lecture III, But.
Med. /., 1884 (I), 703-7, that the frontal and prefrontal regions may serve that function.

28 H. Gushing, A note upon the faradic stimulation of the postcentral gyrus in conscious
patients, Brain, 32, 1909, 44-53.

29 R. B. Loucks, The conditioning of salivary and striped muscle responses to faradiza-
tion of cortical sensory elements, and the action of sleep upon such mechanisms, Psychol.
BtdL, 34, 1937, 743-4-

30 F. A. Gibbs and H. Davis, Changes in the human electroencephalogram associated
with loss of consciousness, Amer. J. PhysioL, 113, 1935, 49-50.

31 L. E. Travis, Brain potentials and the temporal course of consciousness, /. Expcr.
Psychol., 21, 1937, 302-9.

102 NEUROPHYSIOLOGY OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

large brain waves occur when the "mind wanders," while irregular
small ones are seen during high specificity of thought. The flaw in
the electroencephalographic evidence for the relation of the cortex
to consciousness is that it is uncertain that the brain waves originate
wholly in the cortex.

(d) On the basis of histological and anatomical evidence and his
own research on strychninization of the cortex, Dusser dc Barenne 32
has stated that the "ultimate differentiation within sensation"
(which is as close as a physiologist will approach saying "conscious-
ness") is furnished by the cortex and thalamus operating in close
interrelationship.

Other investigators have placed the seat of consciousness else-
where in the cerebrum besides the cortex. Dandy said 33 that an area
specifically concerned with consciousness is to be found in the part
of the cerebrum supplied by the left anterior cerebral artery.
Though the data from his operations together with clinical and
pathological findings were sufficient only to hint that this theory
might be tenable, 34 he found repeatedly that the left anterior cere-
bral artery differs from other vessels supplying the brain in that,
once it is ligated, consciousness is immediately and irremediably
lost. Along with others who localize consciousness or any other
function to part of the cerebrum, Dandy must take account of Lash-
ley's experimental proof 3 '* that, at least in lower animals, there is
no strict correspondence in the cerebrum of structure and function,
but that in many ways the cerebrum acts as an organized whole.

THE INTERBRAIN AND THE LOCALIZATION OF
CONSCIOUSNESS

Several attempts have been made to locate consciousness in tracts
of neurones passing up to the cortex from lower levels of the nervous

32 J. G. Dusser clc Barenne, Central levels of sensory integration, Arch. Neurol. and
Psyclimt., 34, 1935, 774-

33 W. E. Dandy, Changes in our conception of localization of certain functions in the
brain, Amcr. J. P/iysiol., 93, 1930, 643.

34 C/. R. R. Grmkcr, Neurology, Springfield, 111 : Thomas, 1934, 573.

85 K. S. Lashley, Basic neural mechanisms m behavior, Psychol. Rev., 37, 1930, 1-24.

CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE INTERBRAIN 103

system. McDowall said 30 consciousness is "the appreciation of the
stream of afferent impulses which pass to the cerebrum"; Carus 37
chose the left striate body as its localization; Dancz 38 referred to
one type of consciousness localized in the cortex and to another
"vegetative consciousness" in the thalamus; and Campion and
Smith 39 also recognized the cortex and thalamus as centers for two
separate sorts of consciousness. The data supporting these theories
are suggestive rather than convincing.

Penfield located 40 conscious processes in the general region of the
hypothalamus near the third ventricle, although he believed also
that the frontal cortex plays a secondary role in mediating con-
sciousness. As evidence supporting the hypothalamic localization
he marshaled clinical findings on epilepsy. He accepted, first of all,
Jackson's explanation of epilepsy, 41 that there is a discharge in the
gray matter beginning at one point and radiating outward from
that. According to this theory, whether an epileptic patient shows
motor or sensory symptoms or signs or becomes unconscious (FAINT-
ING, UNRESPONSIVE TO STIMULATION) depends upon what region of
the cortex the discharge reaches. Thus, when he becomes uncon-
scious (FAINTING, UNRESPONSIVE TO STIMULATION), the process has
spread to the seat of consciousness. Penfield found 12 that usually the
signs and symptoms immediately preceding loss of consciousness
in epileptic seizures are autonomic (e.g., blanching), and he
assumed that these are caused by the wave of stimulation reaching
autonomic functions in the hypothalamus near the third ventricle.
Consciousness must be located close to this point, he argued, for it
is the next thing affected. In order further to corroborate the hypo-
thalamic localization, he noted cases in which a lesion in that gen*

3<{ R. J. S. McDowall, Clinical Physiology, New York: Applcton, 1927, 5. By permission
of the author and of D. Appleton-Ccntury Compan>.

37 P. Carus, The seat of consciousness, /. Comp. NcttroL, 4, 1894, 176-92.

3S M. C. Dancz, Ubcr the Lokalisation clcr Bcwusstscmsstorungcn, Deutsche Ztschr. /.
Ncrvenh., 134, 1934, 217-30.

39 G. C. Campion and G. E. Smith, The Ncmal Basts of Thought, New York: Haicourt,
Brace, 1934, 88.

40 W. Penfield, The cerebral cortex in man, I, Arch. Neurol. and Psythiat., 40, 1938, 436.

41 Cf. ibid., 429.
** Ibid., 436.

104 NEUROPHYSIOLOGY OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

eral region caused long-continued unconsciousness, and finally he
referred to Hess's demonstration 43 that this part of the brain is
related to sleep.

Penfield considered 44 that the integrity of the frontal cortex is
not essential to the existence of consciousness, although it bears
some relation to it. He based this belief on the fact that radical
extirpation of the frontal lobe does not even temporarily impair
consciousness (as indicated, apparently, by the ability to verbalize).
He concluded 45 that the hypothalamic localization does not mean
that other parts of the brain are not related to consciousness. On
the contrary, he thought that all parts of the brain may be involved
normally, although the basic localization is probably in the inter-
brain.

On the basis of many clinical case histories, including patients
with sleeping sickness, as well as certain experimentation, both
Haskovec 40 and Lhermitte 47 decided that lesions of the third ven-
tricle and surrounding regions are related to loss of consciousness.
This area is practically the same as that which Penfield chose.

Findings of other workers also point to the hypothalamus as the
seat of consciousness. Dubois and a succession of workers since
ipoi 48 have believed that there is a hypothalamic "awake" center,
and that lesions or stimulation there can make one either continu-
ously unconscious (ASLEEP, COMATOSE, UNRESPONSIVE TO STIMULA-
TION) or continually awake.

Various writers 49 have also suggested that the thalamic-hypo-
thalamic region is the seat of unconscious (PSYCHOANALYTIC MEAN-
ING) processes. This suggestion is based upon the Freudian belief
that certain primitive instinctual passions are the major unconscious

43 W. R. IIcss, The autonomic nervous system (concluded), Lancet, 223, 1932, 1259-61.

44 W. Penfield, op. a/., 436.

45 Ibid., 442.

* L. Haskovec, Nouvelles contributions au pj>ychu>me sous-cortical, Enctphale, 24, 1929,
846-55-

47 ]. Lhermitte, La regulation des functions corticales, Emcphale, 27, 1932, 757-85.

48 Cf. F. Harmon, The hypothalamus and sleep, in The Hypothalamus, Res. Publ. Ass.
Nerv. Ment. Di*., 20, 1940, 652-3.

40 E.g., }. Jastrow, he. at.

CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE INTERBRAIN 105

(PSYCHOANALYTIC MEANING) functions. Cannon 50 in classical studies
has demonstrated the important role of the thalamic-hypothalamic
area in emotion. Bard 51 corroborated Cannon, finding that when
all the brain craniad to this region (/.(?., the middle of the inter-
brain and the ventral part of the thalamus) is removed, cats easily
exhibit sham rage. Clinical findings of Head 52 also bear out Can-
non's theory. From these researches some depth psychologists have
argued that the unconscious (PSYCHOANALYTIC MEANING) passions
are mediated by the hypothalamus, and that the inhibiting cortical
processes are conscious.

Most theories that localize consciousness in the cortex and uncon-
sciousness (ANY MEANING) in the thalamic-hypothalamic region
rest either on questionable conclusions drawn from good experi-
ments like Cannon's and Bard's, or on logical conclusions resting
on uncertain experimental bases. 53 Such an unconvincing argument
is Calwell's deduction 04 from the difference between the brains of
apes and of human beings. He said that apes are not "self-con-
scious" or are only feebly so, and cannot say "I think, therefore I
exist." They appear, however, to have the passions and primitive
characters which Freudians count part of the unconscious (PSYCHO-
ANALYTIC MEANING) processes of man. He believed it follows from
these facts that the primitive brain common to man and ape is the
seat of unconsciousness (PSYCHOANALYTIC MEANING), and the higher
association centers peculiar to man mediate his peculiar "self-con-
sciousness." This argument assumes without warrant that a* given
neural structure in the ape has the same function that it has in man.

50 W. B. Cannon, The James-Lange theory of emotions: a critical examination and an
alternative theory, Amer. ]. Psyc/wl., 39, 1927, 106-24; also, Again the James-Lange and
the thalamic theories of emotion, Psychol. Rev., 38, 1931, 281-95.

51 P. Bard, A diencephahc mechanism for the expression of rage with special reference
to the sympathetic nervous system, Amer. /. Phystol., 84, 1928, 490-515.

62 H. Head, Studies in Neurology, London: Frowdc and Hadder and Stoughton, 1920,
II, 620-2.

53 E.g., W. H. R. Rivers and H. Head, A human experiment in nerve division, Brain,
31, 1908, 323-450. An extensive reinvestigation and critique of this problem is E. G.
Boring, Cutaneous sensation after nerve-di vision, Quart, f. Expcr. Physiol., 10, 1916, 1-95.

54 W. Calwell, The unconscious: a suggestion, /. Ment. Set., 71, 1925, 97-100.

106 NEUROPHYSIOLOGY OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

Finally there are the data on localization which led Alford 55 to
conclude that "an area somewhere in the left base [of the brain] is
concerned with the maintenance of awareness." He stated spe-
cifically that his criterion of unconsciousness was the one we con-
sidered in Chapter I (p. 24) under Definition 2 (UNRESPONSIVE
TO STIMULATION). His important arguments were:

(a) In right-handed people right frontal brain tumors, right
occipital brain tumors, extirpation of the entire right cortex down
to the basal ganglia, and tying the right anterior cerebral artery
leave the patient with apparently normal consciousness. In right-
handed patients, moreover, of thirty-three cases of left hemiplegia
(most probably involving the right base) none showed confusion
of consciousness, but of fifty-five cases of right hemiplegia (most
probably involving the left base) twenty-seven were more or less
confused. So in right-handed people the right cortex and base
appear not to be concerned with consciousness.

() Tumors of the left cerebrum in the frontal, occipital, and
parietal regions and ablations of the left frontal, occipital, and tem-
poral lobes give no disturbance of consciousness. Lesions in the
speech zone of the left cortex appear not to affect consciousness in
Alford's sense. This eliminates most of the left cortex as a possible
scat of consciousness.

(c) Only the left base remains, and proof has already been pre-
sented in (a) that confusion of consciousness frequently arises from
lesions here.

The statistics cited by Alford are interesting and suggestive, but
his findings, like most clinical data, have certain necessary limita-
tions. Two major questions which they raise are: Why did not all
the cases of right hemiplegia show loss of consciousness ? And which
of the regions where lesions can cause right hemiplegia was aflFected
in those cases that did lose consciousness? Lashley's proof 57 that
one part of the cortex can assume the function of another, at least

55 L. B. Alfoid, Localization of consciousness and emotion, Amer. /. Psychtat., 12,

I933> 799-

56 Ibid., 790.

07 K. S. Lashley, loc. tit.

PERIPHERAL LOCALIZATION OF CONSCIOUSNESS 107

in lower animals, vitiates AlforcTs reasoning that if one section is
removed without loss of consciousness it cannot be the seat of
awareness.

THE PERIPHERAL LOCALIZATION OF CONSCIOUSNESS

We see from all this research that reasons have been suggested
for localizing consciousness, in various senses of the term, in many
parts of the central nervous system. What are the answers from
proponents of peripheral theories? They come mainly from experi-
mental psychologists, for the peripheral theories are usually theirs
rather than the physiologists'. For psychologists it is the response
to a stimulus that must be the index of consciousness, and it is
natural therefore that they should localize consciousness as near to
the effector of the response as possible. As these experimentalists
first posed die problem half a century ago, it was: Can one think
(/>., be conscious) without some muscular activity? The body of
experiments by no means answers this conclusively. Because of the
psychologists' notorious disregard for neurophysiology, much of this
writing makes man appear to be a robot of reacting muscles whose
neural attachments are of small importance. 58

Strieker 59 thought that one cannot have an idea of a song without
feeling some muscular movement. He asked a hundred people if
they spoke to themselves while thinking or silently reciting a poem,
and they all said they did. Paulhan' 50 opposed Strieker, for he found
that he could say one vowel while thinking of another. Hansen
and Lehmann 01 discovered that when a subject concentrates, uninten-
tional audible whispering nearly always occurs; Courtcn 02 found
that when material is read silently there is always some motion of

58 C/., e.g., C. H. Woolbert, A behavionstic account of sleep, Psychol. Rev. 9 27, 1920,
420-8.

59 S. Strieker, Studicn ubcr die Sprachvorstellungcn, Vienna, 1880.

60 F. Paulhan, Lc langagc intcncur ct la pcnsce, Rev. Philusoplnqnc, 21, 1886, 26-58.

61 F. C. C. Hansen and A. Lchmann, Ueber unwillkurhches Flustern, Phtlos. Studicn
(Wundt), u, 1895, 471-530.

02 H. C. Courten, Involuntary movements of the tongue, Stud. Yale Psychol. Lab., 10,
1902, 93-5.

108 NEUROPHYSIOLOGY OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

the tongue; and Wyczoikowska 63 determined that all thought pro-
duces some movement of the tongue. On the other hand, Curtis, 64
Reed, 05 Pintner, 60 Clark, 67 and Thorson 68 reported work which
seems to show that muscular movement may, but does not always,
accompany thought. All these researches were done before 1926,
and none succeeded in refining measurements of small muscular
movements enough to be conclusive. 69 If only for this technical fault,
they must be discounted.

More recently adequate procedures have produced significant
results. Freeman has observed 70 activity of leg, arm, and jaw muscles
during mental work, and Max 71 found that the muscular action
currents which exist in the fingers and arms of deaf-mutes (for
these are their organs of speech), during waking as well as during
dreaming sleep, become minimal in dreamless sleep. From this last
work it might be deduced that the deaf think with the fingers with
which they do their conversing.

These two researches are the mainstays of peripheral or motor
theories of consciousness. Max wrote 72 that the central principle
of these theories is "that consciousness is not a correlate of merely
cortical activity, but is intrinsically a reaction, functioning in terms
of complete sensori-motor arcs, with the motor part of each arc
just as essential to the process as the central segment." The em-
phasis of peripheral theorists, however, has always been laid upon

03 A. Wyczoikowska, Theoretical and experimental studies m the mechanism of speech,
PsychoL Rev., 20, 1913, 448-58.

64 H. S. Curtis, Automatic movements of the larynx, Amer. ]. PsychoL, u, IQOO, 237-9.

05 H. B. Reed, The existence and function of inner speech m thought processes, /. Exper.
PsychoL, i, 1916, 365-92.

00 R. Pmtner, Inner speech during silent reading, PsychoL AYr., 20, 1913, 129-53.

67 R. S. Clark, An experimental study of silent thinking, Arch, of PsychoL, 7, 1922,
No. 48.

08 A. M. Thorson, The relation of tongue movements to internal speech, /. Exper.
PsychoL, 8, 1925, 1-32.

m> Cf. ibid , 5; also L. W. Max, An experimental study of the motor theory of con-
sciousness: I, /. Gen. PsychoL, n, 1934, u<>-9

70 G. L. Freeman, The spread of ncuro-muscular activity during mental work, /. Gen.
PsychoL, 5, 1931, 479-94-

71 L. W. Max, An experimental study of the motor theory of consciousness: III, /. Comp.
PsychoL, 19, 1935, 469-86.

72 lbid. t I, 112. By permission of the Journal of Comparative Psychology and of the
Williams & Wilkins Company.

PERIPHERAL LOCALIZATION OF CONSCIOUSNESS 109

the motor part of the arc. The discussions of this doctrine which
were written by academic psychologists during the 1910*8 and the
1920'$, even when the last two experiments had not been reported,
passed far beyond the meager experimental evidence on which they
were based. 73 For that reason we shall neglect them.

The best-known motor theory of consciousness was Watson's.
He contended' 4 that in normal individuals thought is activity of
the laryngeal muscles. In this way he rounded out his behaviorism.
Though Watson continually stressed experimental investigation,
conclusive proof for this hypothesis of his has not appeared.

Important criticisms have been made of this kind of theory. Pills-
bury argued' 5 that, if motor activity is the basic characteristic of
consciousness, stimulation of the motor area of the cortex should
give a particularly rich conscious experience. Gushing, he said, did
stimulate the motor cortex of unanesthctized patients, but they
reported no such experience. They moved their limbs, but their
introspection indicated that the only effect of the stimulation on
consciousness was the kinesthetic sense from the muscles. McComas
suggested 70 that, if the motor theorists are correct, injuries to the
motor areas of the cortex should affect consciousness more than
lesions elsewhere. He believed, therefore, that the demonstration
by Southard and others that injuries of the motor cortex have no
such peculiar effect discredits the motor theory. He argued further
that if, as the motor theory insists, every impression must result in
behavior, consciousness would be a kind of perpetual St. Vitus's
dance.

In these peripheral theories is little place for the concept of un-
conscious (ANY MEANING) processes. If consciousness is a property
of the function of all sensori-motor arcs, no behavior could be un-
conscious (ANY MEANING). Subjective experience not accompanied

73 Cf. M. F. Washburn, Movement and Mental Imagery, Boston: Houghton Mifflm,
1016, 17-26.

74 J. B. Watson, Is thinking merely the action of language mechanisms?, Brit. /. Psychol.,
ii, 1920, 88.

75 W. B. Pillsbury, The place of movement in consciousness, Psychol. Rev., 18, 1911, 87.

76 H. C. McComas, Extravagances in the motor theories of consciousness, Psychol. Rev n
23, 1916, 401.

110 NEUROPHYSIOLOGY OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

by muscular activity alone could be described as lacking conscious-
ness, and the peripheral theories deny that there can be such ex-
perience.

COMPROMISE OF CENTRAL AND PERIPHERAL THEORIES

It has been noted' 7 that where an investigator localizes conscious-
ness depends upon his personal attitude and interests. If his interest
is in stimulus and response, he places consciousness in sense re-
ceptors and muscles; if his interest is in the complex adaptations of
the organism, he locates it in the central nervous system. All the
links in the chain from receptor to effector are essential for the
existence of consciousness to be apparent to an observer. Peripheral
and central theories must therefore be compromised. This has been
done most adequately by Freeman. <s He maintained' 9 that muscu-
lar activity facilitates cortical operation, and that both subjective
experience and muscular activity can be explained only by reference
to principles of central nervous operation. He compiled convincing
evidence that muscular activity facilitates higher mental processes.

(a) His own work has shown* that alterations in the tension of
muscles closely parallel the fluctuations in efficiency of mental
activity which occur throughout the day.

() Extreme muscular relaxation was found by Miller 81 to reduce
the extent of finger reaction to an electric shock, increase the reac-
tion time, and produce subjectively an apparent diminution of the
intensity of the stimulus.

(<r) The research of Jacobson indicated 82 that with complete
relaxation mental activity diminishes or disappears.

77 E G. Boring, The Physical Dimensions of Consciousness, New York: Century, 1933,
237.

78 G. L. Freeman, Mental activity and the muscular processes, Psychol. Rev., 38, 1931,
428-49.

79 //W., 428-9.
80 //W., 432.

81 M. Miller, Changes in the response to electric shock produced by varying muscular
conditions, /. Expcr. Psychol., 9, 1926, 26-44.

82 E. Jacobson, Progressive Relaxation, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1929, 127-89.

NEURAL VIGILANCE AND LEVELS OF FUNCTION HI

(d) Jacobson and Carlson found that muscular relaxation causes
a decrease in the amplitude of the knee-jerk.

(e) Bills demonstrated 83 that the rate of learning is increased by
muscular tension.

To explain how contraction of muscles can facilitate cortical
activity, Freeman advanced the theory that proprioceptive stimula-
tion from the muscles alters the thresholds of irritability of cortical
neurones. An indication that this alteration occurs is the demonstra-
tion by Cardot, Regnier, Santenoise, and Vare 84 that muscular con-
traction lowers the chronaxie (i.e., the time required for excitation
by a standard stimulus) of cortical areas. If, then, muscular activity
lowers cortical thresholds, Freeman reasoned, when muscles are
tense (as in waking) the cortex will respond to stimuli which other-
wise would be inadequate (as in sleep). In sleep the facilitating
impulses from the muscles would fall, the thresholds of cortical
neurones would consequently rise, and these neurones would then
be unable to respond to moderate stimuli. Thus the "vigilance" of
the cortex would be lowered.

NEURAL VIGILANCE AND LEVELS OF FUNCTION

The concept of neural vigilance was developed by Head 85 to
represent a state of high-grade physiological efficiency. He stated 80
that neural centers react to identical stimuli with different degrees
of physiological efficiency, depending upon their state of vitality.
Consciousness results from vigilance of the higher centers just as
adaptive and purposive reflexes follow from vigilance of lower

83 A. G. Bills, The influence of muscular tension on the efficiency of mental work,
Amcr. /. PsychoL, 38, 1927, 227-51. ^

84 II. Cardot, J. Rcgmcr, D. Santcnoisc, and P. Varc, Influence dc 1'activitc musculairc sur
rexcitabihte corticale, Comptes Rcndus Soc. BioL, 97, 1927, 698-701. That heat applied
to an extremity and electrical stimulation of the skin have a similar effect is seen in A.
Rizzolo, Influence de I'cchaufTcment d'un mcmbrc sur lYxutabilite du point moteur
cortical correspondant and A. Rizzolo, Effet dc 1'cxcitation cltctnquc de la peau sur
1'excitabilite de 1'ecorce cercbrale, Comptes Rcndus Soc. Biol., 97, 1927, 1607-8 and 1608-
n, respectively.

85 H. Head, The conception of nervous and mental energy (II), Bnf. J. Psychol., 14,
1923, 126-47.

</., 143, 146.

112 NEUROPHYSIOLOGY OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

centers. When vigilance is high, a response to stimulation is ob-
tained more easily, and also appears to be more adaptive or pur-
posive, than when vigilance is low. This vigilance may be lowered
by structural changes in the central nervous system, by toxic in-
fluences like chloroform and sepsis, or by any other factor that
diminishes physiological capacity. Into this statement Freeman
dovetailed his well-grounded theory, saying 87 that stimulation of
cortical centers from the muscles is a very important one of the
conditions which lower or raise physiological capacity.

Though it appears from these statements of Head's that con-
sciousness for him is in higher centers and mere "purposive re-
flexes" are in the lower centers, this interpretation is in conflict
with the fundamental implications of his theory. He sometimes
bogged down in the morass of the mind-matter problem, but his
basic tenet was that all nervous tissue is capable of the vigilance
necessary to control the activities of the body: 88

Whatever the level, conscious or automatic, on which this control
is exercised, it would have been impossible without a high degree
of vigilance. . . . Any influence, which lowers neural potency, acting
on some appropriate portion of the central nervous system, even for
a moment, may abolish consciousness as a whole or eliminate some
specific group of psychical or somatic responses. Should the disturb-
ing agent exert a universal effect, as is the case with chloroform, one
function after another disappears in order, beginning with those of
highest rank and culminating with the most mechanical and pre-
ordained responses.

Head stated that when, for some reason, neural impulses do
not pass through a certain part of the nervous system, the local
vigilance vanishes, and what he calls the "neural schema" or aware-
ness of that part is lacking. He illustrated this by the event re-
counted in Case VI of Chapter II (p. 52), the patient who suffered
complete destruction of the ulnar nerve which supplies the little
finger. Later this hand was amputated and the phantom hand
that appeared afterward lacked the little finger. Head explained

87 G. L. Freeman, op. /., 434.

88 H. Head, op. at., 144-5.

NEURAL VIGILANCE AND LEVELS OF FUNCTION 113

that, because impulses had not passed through this finger before
it was cut off, it seemed like part of the outside world the con-
scious schema had been lost. The vigilance of the ulnar nerve and
the centers connected with it had disappeared. Such clinical evi-
dence might be interpreted to indicate that consciousness, like
conductivity and irritability, is a characteristic of the function of
any neural tissue. (Bostock has gone farther and said it is a prop-
erty of all protoplasm. 89 )

Facts we have considered have made it seem that the locus of
consciousness is in the cortex; yet all parts of it can be removed
without loss of consciousness. There are data that point to other
parts of the cerebrum, yet a decerebrate cat 90 can discriminate water
from alcohol, become excited at barking, and shake its head in a
way that would dislodge a flea when the hairs of its ear are
touched. All this is consciousness by the criterion of discrimination.
Some findings would put consciousness in the hypothalamus near
the third ventricle, but a dog with no part of the central nervous
system above the spinal cord functioning can be conditioned (and
so be conscious, according to one criterion). Even the operation
of peripheral nerves and the tenseness of muscles seem to affect
consciousness.

To bring order into this apparent chaos we must hold that the
central nervous system is capable of being organized to operate
at various levels. Each level has its own threshold, and impulses
which reach one may not be able to push on to another. Wherever
in the system at the moment is the greatest vigilance, there is the
control of discrimination, and from the point of view of that
criterion, the locus of consciousness. As Cobb wrote: 91 "Conscious^,
ness probably is found at several levels, but largely it seems to be
the awareness of that part of the stream of impulses that reaches
the highest level of nervous integration of a given organism."

89 J. Bostock, The Neural Energy Constant, London: Allen and Unwin, 1930, 24 ff.

90 H. Head, op. cit., 130-1. Cf. also H. C. Bazett and W. G. Penfield, A study of the
Sherrington decerebrate animal in the chronic as well as the acute condition, Brain, 45,
1922, 185-265.

91 S. Cobb, A Preface to Nervous Disease, Baltimore: Wood, 1937, 73.

114 NEUROPHYSIOLOGY OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

We cannot neglect to observe that, as reviewed in this chapter,
introspective attestation of consciousness was not to be found
mediated by the lower levels of the nervous system. In recognizing
that consciousness (by the discrimination criterion) can be local-
ized in all parts of the nervous system, we must also realize
that no data show consciousness (by the criterion of ability to
communicate) in the lower levels.

This is the localization of consciousness. Where is unconscious-
ness (ANY MEANING) ? In whatever functioning part of the nervous
system remains. If we accept the communication criterion, any
function of the nervous system which has insufficient vigilance
to pass the threshold of the mechanism of report is unconscious
(INCOMMUNICABLE). This criterion, thus, divides the individual
into functioning levels communicable and incommunicable. By
the discrimination criterion the organism is a whole. Only if it
does not have the vigilance to react at all to stimulation is it un-
conscious (UNDISCRIMINATING), for, if it behaves, it is conscious.

CONCLUSIONS

Three explanations may be given for the multitude of localiza-
tions of consciousness, and hence by exclusion of unconsciousness
(ANY MEANING), which have been referred to in this chapter. First,
in certain cases there is disagreement about the observed facts.
Second, some of the arguments are grounded on no empirical
basis whatever or are not self-consistent, and hence their conclusions
are not sound. Third, different criteria and meanings of conscious-
ness have been employed. Proper empirical observation can remedy
disagreement about the localization that arises from the first two
causes, but that which arises from the third cause can be dealt with
only by a careful separation of the various senses in which con-
scious is used.

There are a number of functions of the organism which have
nothing in common except that they have all been called conscious
by someone. We have reviewed the research that shows that the

CONCLUSIONS 115

integrity of various different levels of the nervous system must be
maintained for these various events to occur. One of these con-
scious (DISCRIMINATING) functions is the ordinary unconditioned re-
flex; for this to take place the reflex arc must be preserved, but no
other neural organization is essential. Another is the conditioned
reflex, for which a higher level of organization, though nothing
above the spinal cord, must remain in operation. A third conscious
(COMMUNICABLE) function is speech, and for it a still higher neural
level of organization is required. Actually these sorts of conscious-
ness are as different types of behavior as are focusing one's eyes
and eating one's dinner.

The several kinds of consciousness and unconsciousness (ANY
MEANING) are governed by various levels of neural integration. At
any given moment in a given individual, the integration of con-
scious mechanisms is controlled at the level of highest vigilance in
the nervous system. Throughout the life of the individual this level
of organization frequently alters.

CHAPTER V
STATES OF. UNCONSCIOUSNESS

We have seen that different sorts of consciousness may be organ-
ized at various levels of the nervous system. There is a sense in
which the degree of consciousness varies from level to level. Just
as the amount of activity of an individual and the number of re-
flexes that can be elicited from him differ in waking, sleep, and
surgical anesthesia, so also the subjective characteristics of those
states differ. It may well be that as the degree of neural vigilance
diminishes, the subjective feeling of consciousness (AWARE OF DIS-
CRIMINATION) decreases.

Whether these various levels of unconsciousness (UNAVAILABLE TO
AWARENESS) or of consciousness, if you will constitute a con-
tinuum, one merging into another, or whether there is somewhere
a sharp dividing line, is a puzzle which must plague us continually
in this and future chapters. The states of unconsciousness with
which we are here concerned are: hypnosis, sleep, unconsciousness
from concussion or other abnormal physiological causes (fainting,
coma), anesthesia, dream states, and reverie or day-dreams. Objec-
tively these states can be distinguished by absence of proper response
to various kinds of stimulation, as to pain or to questioning. Sub-
jectively certain of them have definite, recognizable characteristics,
but the quality of one fades imperceptibly into that of another.
Lashley said 1 in 1923 that introspective reports on their similarities
and differences are of little practical value. He maintained that,
while certain states may be considered typically conscious and others
typically unconscious (UNAVAILABLE TO AWARENESS), there are bor-
derline cases, like the hypnagogic state just at waking, which fall
between the two classifications. Moreover, introspection on these

1 K. S. Lashley, The behavionstic interpretation of consciousness II, Psychol. Rev.,
3, 1923, 339-40.

116

HYPNOSIS 117

states requires an effort of examination that in itself destroys them.
From these observations Lashley concluded that no subjective cri-
terion of consciousness is reliable, and that all any introspector can
do is to assert that the bounds of consciousness lie near the level at
which subjective experience becomes so vague that it cannot be
contemplated further.

Unquestionably the difficulties of introspection which Lashley
spoke of are real, but it must be remembered that he wrote at the
height of the outcry against subjective report. Admittedly the
descriptions of passing under anesthesia mentioned later in this
chapter are of little value in explaining that kind of unconscious-
ness (ANESTHETIZED), but on the other hand, as we have seen (p.
101), the subjective reports of exactly when sleep begins and ends
have been found to coincide well with changes in brain waves.
Perhaps the reason that the point of appearance of consciousness
during a gradual awakening is difficult to determine, as Lashley
insists, is that the phenomenon occurring is a change in degree,
just as subjective report pictures it. It is difficult to deny, however,
that while introspection has sometimes been revealing, the most
significant clinical and experimental knowledge that we have of
the group of states which we are about to consider is physiological,
objectively determined.

HYPNOSIS

The large number of experimental studies of hypnosis which
have been conducted cannot possibly be reviewed here. It is impos-
sible even to sketch in the evidence on whether the hypnotic state
resembles more the waking state or sleep. This work has been care-
fully analyzed by Hull. 2 It seems certain at present that there are
definite differences between the behavior of people who are hypno-
tized and the actions of those who are asleep. It is known also that
posthypnotic behavior differs from any which follows sleep. The
physiological concomitants of the two states, moreover, are dis-

2 C. L. Hull, Hypnosis and Suggestibility, New York: Appleton-Ccntury, 1933, 193-223.

118 STATES OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

similar. Jenness and Wible, for example, have shown 8 that electro-
cardiograms and breathing records of subjects under hypnosis are
more like their records when they are awake than when they are
asleep. Hypnosis is not sleep, then, but it is entirely conceivable that
a hypnotized subject could fall asleep.

It has been shown repeatedly 4 that one can remember better
under hypnosis than normally, especially remote events. In one
sense, therefore, a man is more unconscious (UNREMEMBERING) when
awake than when hypnotized. How, then, is a hypnotic subject un-
conscious ? Perhaps in the sense of UNNOTICING or UNATTENDING, and
certainly in the use UNABLE TO COMMUNICATE. The proof is mani-
fold 5 that, under the suggestion of the hypnotist, the subject appears
to attend only to what he is directed to consider. In the trance and
even afterward at the command of the hypnotist, he may act as if
he entirely lacked perception of parts of his environment which he
would never normally overlook, and later report that he never saw
them. From these clues one would say the subject was unconscious
(UNNOTICING or UNATTENDING) of part of his environment, and in
some cases this may be true, though there are three reasons why it
is certain that it is not always right:

(a) Many subjects admit later that they were play-acting, and
that, when their attention appeared deflected from something, they
nevertheless were aware of it.

() In Case I of Chapter II (p. 46), Witt., in her hypnotic trance,
appeared oblivious of the realities of her surroundings as long as her
bluff was not called. When it was called, it became apparent that
she was attending acutely to her environment. This event illustrates
a common hypnotic phenomenon.

(c) In an experiment of Dorcus's, 6 although subjects under
hypnosis reported the subjective feelings which usually accompany
the activities which it was suggested that they were performing,

3 A. Jenness and C. L. Wible, Respiration and heart action in sleep and hypnosis,
/. Gen. Psychol., 16, 1937, 197-222.

4 Cf. C. L. Hull, op. /., 105-27.

5 E.g., tbtd.y 23-40.

6 R. M. Dorcus, Modification by suggestion of some vestibular and visual responses,
Amcr. /. Psychol., 49, 1937, 82-7.

SLEEP 119

they did not show the proper objective concomitants of those re-
sponses. For instance, when they were told by the hypnotist that
they were being rotated in a chair (although this was untrue), they
said they felt the rotation but they did not show the proper eye-
movements that normally accompany such rotation. Dorcus con-
cluded that the true facts of behavior under hypnosis are uncon-
scious, not in the sense of UNAVAILABLE TO AWARENESS, but merely in
the sense of INCOMMUNICABLE. He believes that the subjects' ap-
parent insensibility can be adequately explained on a basis of
heightened suggestibility, rather than by a theory of dissociation or
restriction of consciousness. Behavior under hypnosis often presents
a paradox not easy to resolve unless levels of function are postulated.
At the level of the eye responses, for instance, the subject is aware
of the environment. The eyes do not show nystagmus, for they have
not been properly stimulated. At the level of speech, often as obvi-
ously sincere as the astronomer's report of a new comet, he insists
he was rotated.

SLEEP

Certain characteristics differentiate the unconsciousness (UNRE-
SPONSIVE TO STIMULATION) of sleep from other states like hypnosis or
anesthesia. Kleitman has listed 7 the most important criteria of the
sleep state. A sleeping organism has a loss of differentiated reaction
to external stimuli; a raised threshold for all types of response; and
a capacity to be aroused to a waking state. There are many depths
of sleep, from the light hypnagogic condition of just waking up,
which is between waking and sleeping, to profound levels. Judging^
the level by the intensity of stimulus necessary to wake the sleeper,
Endres and von Frey as well as others 8 have found, by determining
the intensity of stimulus required to waken sleepers, that there are
great variations as to when during an ordinary night sleep is heavy
or light. The curves of the depth of sleep do not have the all-inclu-

T N. Kleitman, Sleep, Physiol. Rev,, 9, 1929, 624.

8 G. Endres and W. v. Frey, Ueber Schlaftiefe und Schlafmenge, Ztschr. f. BioL, 90,
1930, 70-80. Cf. also H. M. Johnson and T. H. Swan, Sleep, Psychol. Bull., 27, 1930, 1-18.

120 STATES OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

sive validity that is sometimes ascribed to them, for there is no
proof that any single stimulus can adequately measure the level of
the general sleep process. Also it is certain that people differ widely
as to when their sleep is deepest. There is evidence 9 that one's sleep
is lightest just after he has made muscular movements.

Numerous studies have been made of physiological characteristics
of sleep. The investigations of muscular activity in sleep have estab-
lished 10 that while movement is less than in the waking state, it
still is definitely present.

Neural vigilance generally decreases in sleep, as is shown by the
generally recognized fact 11 that certain proprioceptive reflexes, like
the knee-jerk, show diminished excitability during sleep. On the
depth of sleep depends the strength or even the presence of such
reflexes. Kleitman found 12 that in puppies the labyrinthine righting
reaction acting on the head is lost in sound sleep, and this is true
of other animals. It has also been shown 13 that certain reflexes to
stimulation of the skin are preserved. Facial grimaces and move-
ments of the hand capable of eliminating the source of stimulation
can be elicited by brushing the cheek. Also the iris of the eye con-
stricts to light and dilates to certain extraneous stimuli. The heart
action, too, alters during sleep, its rate changes probably being of
reflex origin.

Some evidence exists 14 that a cognizance of time continues
throughout sleep, for subjects have waked themselves close to the
time set without any cues to help them. The findings on this prob-
lem have been equivocal. There is reason to believe 15 that some
sleepers can hear and remember on waking conversations carried
on in their presence while they are asleep. Freud has given his

9 N. Kleitman, N. R. Cooperman, and F. J. Mullin, Is there a continuous curve of the
depth of sleep?, Amer. /. P/iysiol., 116, 1936, 92-3.

10 Cf. N. Kleitman, op. cit., 624-7.
^C/. ibid., 633.

12 N. Kleitman, Studies on the physiology of sleep, V, Amer. f. Physiol., 84, 1928, 391.

13 N. Kleitman, Sleep, Physiol. Rev., 9, 1929, 633-4.

14 E.g., E. N. Brush, Observations on the temporal judgment during sleep, Amer. J.
Psychol., 42, 1930, 408-11.

15 E.g., H. H. Goddard, A case of dual personality, /. Abnorm. and Soc. Psychol., 21,
1926, 185.

SLEEP 121

agreement 16 to Burdach's observation that we are capable of inter-
preting sensory impressions while asleep (as can the nurse who
wakes when her infant charge cries but to no other sound). He
believed that the reason most stimuli will not wake us is that we are
not sufficiently interested in them. Frequently activities and expe-
riences of sleep are not remembered upon waking. Case II of
Chapter II (p. 47) is one of many examples of somnambulism so
forgotten i.c., unconscious (INCOMMUNICABLE).

Finally, dreaming goes on during much sleep.

Let us now take up the leading theories that attempt to explain
sleep, and review the data which have been adduced to substantiate
them.

(a) There are various philosophical and psychoanalytic theories.
LeDantec has said 17 that sleep is general inattention; Bohn 18 and
Crile 19 have referred in explanation to bipolarism of the central
nervous system; Rignano has said" that sleep is a suspension of
affective mental activity. The usual psychoanalytic interpretation, as
of Freud 21 or Rank, 22 is that man wishes to return to the fetal
intrauterine life and partially achieves satisfaction of this desire in
sleep. Lack of rigorously controlled supportive evidence discredits
all these doctrines.

(b) Von Economo has called 23 one class of interpretations of the
nature of sleep "theories of lack of stimuli." To those who developed
such theories the disappearance of consciousness seemed the most
important characteristic of sleep and was the only one which they
attempted to explain. Sleep was for them caused by some interrup-
tion of the conduction of stimuli to the cortex. Exner and Rabl-

16 S. Freud, The Basic Writings of Stgmund Freud, ed. A. A. Brill, New York: Random
House, 1938 (The Interpretation of Dreams), 279.

17 F. LeDantec, Considerations sur Ic repos ct Ic sommeil, Rev. Philosophique, 77, 1914,

136.

18 G. Bohn, La dynamique cerebrale, Rev. Philosophique, 87, 1919, 251-69.

19 G. W. Crile, A Bipolar Theory of Living Processes, New York: Macmillan, 1926, 32-4.

20 E. Rignano, The Psychology of Reasoning, trans. W. A. Hall, London: Kegan Paul,
Trench, Trubner, 1923, 293-7.

21 S. Freud, A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis, New York: Liveright, 1920, 67-8.

22 O. Rank, The Trauma of Birth, New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1929, 74 fi.

23 C. v. Economo, Sleep as a problem of localization, /. Nerv. and Ment. Dis., 71, 1930,
250.

122 STATES OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

Riickhard believed that ganglion cells of the brain in sleep retract
their dendrites; Purkinje held that congestion of basal ganglia
"strangles" neurones that pass to and from the cortex and so inter-
rupts conduction; Mauthner and Veronese and Tromner made
similar suggestions. 24 The mechanisms outlined by these various
workers have not been substantiated by histological or other find-
ings. Even if this were done, no explanation of what sets the inter-
rupting mechanisms into action would have been given. Hence this
class of theory has not proved to be useful.

(c) Other theories explain sleep by some chemical influence on
cells of the nervous system or within the cells themselves. Purkinje's,
Pfliiger's, and Dubois's interpretations 25 do not have sufficient
basis. Pieron 20 postulated formation of a hypnotoxin during wake-
fulness which acts as a soporific to produce sleep. He had some
experimental corroboration of this, finding that after cerebrospinal
fluid, blood serum, or an extract of cerebral tissue from a tired ani-
mal is injected into a normal, wide-awake animal, the latter becomes
drowsy and falls asleep. Experiments of Kroll 27 and of Ivy and
Schnedorf 28 have shown that changes in bodily chemistry occur
during sleep and can cause sleep, but they have raised serious doubts
about the correctness of Pieron's original explanatory formulation.

There is no evidence for the oft-repeated idea that lactic acid or
some other product of muscular activity can affect the nervous
system to cause sleep or relaxation.

All the phenomena of sleep cannot be explained by any chemical
theory, for it often occurs without fatigue; moreover, comparatively
weak stimuli can interrupt normal sleep, giving rise to clearness of
consciousness. Claparede has considered 29 resting in sleep a defense
against the intoxication of exhaustion rather than intoxication itself.

24 C. v. Economo reviews these various theories, ibid., 250-1.

25 Cf. ibid., 251-2.

26 H. Pieron, Le problems physiologiquc du sommcil, Paris: Masson, 1912.

27 F.-W. Kroll, Uber das Vorkommen von iibertragbaren schlaferzcugenden StofTen im
Hirn schlafender Ticre, Ztschr. /. ges. Neurol. u. Psychiat., 146, 1933, 208-18.

28 A. C. Ivy and J. G. Schnedorf, On the hypnotoxin theory of sleep, Amcr. /. Physiol.,
"9 1937, 342.

29 E. Claparede, Opinions et travaux divers relatifs a la theorie biologique du sommeil et
dc rhysterie, Arch, de Psychol., 21, 1928, 113-61.

SLEEP 123

It may indeed be true that sleep is such a protective mechanism, and
that when for any reason the concentration of intoxicating sub-
stances becomes pathologically high, syncope, narcosis, or narco-
lepsy ensue.

(d) Other quasi-chemical theories depend more upon endocrine
function than upon formation of fatigue substances. Mingazzini
and Barbara have explained 30 the periodicity of waking and sleep
on much the same basis of endocrine function as the periodicity of
the female sexual cycle can be interpreted. Alternation of rest and
activity may be seen in most plants and animals, and in lower ani-
mals may not necessarily be dependent upon the brain or head
ganglion. When an earthworm is cut in two, both ends continue to
exhibit such periodicity. 31 In mammals, though, there is a control
of sleep by the brain so that, when the spinal cord is isolated from
the brain by transection, nothing like sleep occurs in the part of the
body below (aboral to) the separation, but the fore part shows
typical periodic sleep. 32

(/) Pavlov's school has explained sleep by its principle of
"internal inhibition." Loucks discovered 35 that conditioning in re-
sponse to electrical stimulation of cortical sensory elements disap-
pears in sleep. This occurred apparently because of some "internal"
inhibitory process of the central nervous system. Dogs were ob-
served by Pavlov 30 to fall asleep during conditioning experiments.

30 C. v. Economo, op. cit., 253, discusses this theory.

31 J. S. Szymanski, Die Vcrtcilung von Ruhe- und Aktivitats perioden bci einigeo,
Tierartcn, Pflngcrs Arch., 172, 1918, 439-42.

32 P. Bard (cd.), Macleod's Physiology in Modern Medicine, 9th ed., St. Louis: Mosby,
1941, 241.

83 E.g., W. H. Howell, A contribution to the physiology of sleep, based upon plethysmo-
graphic experiments, /. Exper. Med., 2, 1897, 313-46.

84 E.g., J. F. Shcpard, The Circulation and Sleep, New York: Macmillan, 1914.

35 R. B. Loucks, The conditioning of salivary and striped muscle responses to faradiza-
tion of cortical sensory elements, and the action of sleep upon such mechanisms, Psychoi.
Bull., 34, 1937, 743-4-

36 I. P. Pavlov, Lectures on Conditioned Reflexes, trans. W. H. Gantt, New York: Inter-
national, 1928, 305-8.

124 STATES OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

He found that, if they were allowed to remain in the conditioning
situation for some time, they went to sleep. He stated a general law: 37

A more or less enduring stimulation falling on a certain part of the
hemispheres, whether or not it is of vital significance (and especially
if it is without such significance), and no matter how strong it may
be, every such stimulation, if it is not accompanied by simultaneous
stimulation of other points, or if it is not alternated with other stimu-
lations, leads inevitably sooner or later to drowsiness and sleep.

Dogs have been put to sleep with strong electric shocks in Pavlov's
laboratory, and it seems that any sort of stimulation is capable of
producing sleep so long as it is monotonously continuous. Kleitman
criticized 38 this theory on the grounds of his finding that dogs,
placed in conditioning stands similar to those used by Pavlov, go to
sleep without conditioning. This criticism is without point, how-
ever, for it is to be noted that Pavlov's explanation of sleep quoted
above states that internal inhibition can be set up by any monotonous
stimulation and not only by a specific conditioning situation.

(g) Certain muscular theories of sleep have been developed to
fit in with the motor or peripheral explanations of consciousness
considered in the last chapter. Washburn, for example, has written 39
that sleep is an attitude of complete muscular relaxation. Hence in
"perfect sleep" one cannot be conscious, because consciousness de-
pends on muscular contractions. All this, however, is almost pure
verbalism with scarcely any empirical basis.

Kleitman also has emphasized 40 the importance in sleep of mus-
cular relaxation and the consequent diminution in the number of
impulses from the muscles reaching the central nervous system.
The hypnagogic state in puppies was observed by Kleitman, 41 and
he made observations of muscular activity in sleep. In waking, the
limb and abdominal musculature, which had been relaxed, stiff-

87 Ibid., 307. By permission of International Publishers.

88 N. Kleitman, Sleep, Physiol. Rev.. 9, 1929, 650-1.

39 M. F. Washburn, Movement and Mental Imagery, Boston: Hough ton Mifflm, 1916, 227.

40 N. Kleitman, Sleep, Physiol, Rev., 9, 1929, 654-9.

41 N. Kleitman, Studies on the physiology of sleep, V, Amer. /. Physiol., 84, 1928,
390-1.

SLEEP 125

cned. Freeman added 42 observations of human behavior that also
show that restoration of muscular tenseness accompanies waking.
He found that frequently when he grasped the alarm clock imme-
diately on being aroused from sleep by it, it fell through his fingers.
This did not occur when he took time to stretch first. He believed
that, while stimulation from nonproprioceptive senses are important
in maintaining the waking state, sleep intervenes whenever pro-
prioceptive stimulation drops below a crucial minimum, no matter
how strong the other stimuli are.

(h) A final type of theory concerning sleep is that there is a
localized sleep center in the central nervous system. Often this
center has been thought to be cortical, and the cortex probably
mediates functions related to normal sleep in man, 43 but there are
lower centers. One indication that there is a subcortical sleep center
is Kleitman and Camille's demonstration 44 that decorticate dogs
display in every twenty-four hours several periods of what appears
objectively to be sleep, alternating with states of activity.

Many workers have been connected with the research which has
led to locating a sleep center in the hypothalamus and a region about
the third ventricle, but the studies by von Economo, Hess, Ranson,
and Harrison have been the most significant. Von Economo con-
cluded 45 from clinical and pathological study of cases of lethargic
encephalitis that the prolonged sleep which is the outstanding symp-
tom of this disease is caused by lesions in this region. The soporific
effect of disease in this part of the brain has been repeatedly con-
firmed. 46 Von Economo believed that fatigue substances circulating
in the blood activate this center, which thereupon inhibits cortical
activity causing the unconsciousness (UNAVAILABLE TO AWARENESS) df
sleep. He thought that this action might be the internal inhibition

42 G. L. Freeman, Mental activity and the muscular processes, PsychoL Rcv. y 38, 1931,
440-2.

43 N. Kleitman, Sleep, Physiol. Rev., 9, 1929, 651-4.

44 N. Kleitman and N. Camille, Studies on the physiology of sleep, VI, Amer. f. PhysioL,
100, 1932, 474-80.

45 C. v. Economo, op. cit., 254-8.

46 C/. N. Kleitman, Sleep, Physiol. Rev., 9, 1929, 646-7; also F. Harrison, The hypothala-
mus and sleep, in The Hypothalamus, Res. Publ. Ass. New. Ment. Dis., 20, 1940, 636-8.

126 STATES OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

of Pavlovian theory. At the same time, according to him, the sleep
center also regulates the physiological characteristics of sleep through
lower centers like those controlling respiration, metabolism, etc.
Hess placed 47 electrodes into the region of the third ventricle in
cats, and, after the animals had recovered from this operation, he
stimulated the brain with low voltages through these electrodes.
Some of the animals became excited; others became somnolent. He
concluded that he had stimulated a sleep center in this region. The
numerous attempts to demonstrate the region of effect of pharma-
cological agents that produce sleep have resulted 48 in no clear-cut
answer, but point to the hypothalamic region.

Recently a different interpretation of the function of this region
has developed. Ranson and his co-workers have discovered 49 that
experimentally produced lesions in the posterior part of the lateral
hypothalamus cause somnolence in the cat and the monkey. They
believe that the normal function of this center is important in main-
taining the waking state, and that it is really the reverse of a sleep
center. They reinterpret von Economo's findings about lethargic
encephalitis to show that damage to this center prevents it from
carrying out its normal function of maintaining the waking state.
Harrison produced somnolence 50 in several animals by passing elec-
trical current through the lateral hypothalamic area, but this stimula-
tion produced permanent lesions. Stimulation which did not cause
lesions merely excited the animals. It may well be, therefore, that
Hess's stimulation which caused somnolence produced lesions which
he did not find. The evidence in general, 51 then, leads to the conclu-
sion that depression of the activity of a specific area of the hypo-
thalamus causes sleep, while stimulation of it causes excitement.

47 W. R. Hess, The autonomic nervous system (concluded), Lancet, 223, 1932, 1259-61.

48 Cf. F. Harrison, op. at., 638-42.

49 S. W. Ranson, Some functions of the hypothalamus, The Harvey Lectures, 1936'
1937, Baltimore: Williams and Wilkms, 1937, 111-5; also S. W. Ranson, The functional
and clinical significance of the hypothalamus, Quart. Bull. Northwestern U. Med. School,
14, 1940, 141-3. Cf. also S. Bcrggren and E. Moberg, Expenmentelle Untersuchungen
zum Problem des Schlafcs, Acta Psychiat. et NetiroL, 4, 1929, 1-46; also, G. Marincsco,
O. Sager, and A. Kremdlcr, Expenmentelle Untersuchungen zum Problem des Schlaf-
mechamsmus, Ztschr. f. gcs. Neurol. u. Psychiat., 119, 1929, 277-306.

50 F. Harrison, op. cit., 643-7.

61 Reviewed by F. Harrison, op. cit., 635-56.

UNCONSCIOUSNESS FROM ABNORMAL FUNCTION 127

There is no reason why more than one of these theories of sleep
cannot be right, or why the evidence adduced for them cannot be
amalgamated. The localization theories have good support, and it
appears certain that chemical factors affect sleep and waking. There
is no reason why the hypothalamic center cannot be susceptible to
chemical stimulation or depression, just as is the respiratory center.
Monotonous stimulation, such as Pavlov referred to, may also acti-
vate the center, and its action may be promoted by a diminution
of proprioceptive impulses from the musculature, which become
less frequent as the relaxation that accompanies sleep begins. The
omens all point to some such merger as the interpretation of the
physiology of sleep most likely to be substantiated by further in-
vestigation.

UNCONSCIOUSNESS FROM ABNORMAL PHYSIOLOGICAL

CAUSES

When certain lesions, like tumors, have caused loss of conscious-
ness, it is possible at operation or autopsy to determine accurately
where the nervous system was affected. Fainting is an example of
loss of consciousness due to abnormal physiological states. The com-
monest cause of fainting is anemia of the nuclei in the hindbrain
controlling vasomotor nerves, resulting in a vaso-vagal attack. Many
conditions may give rise to cerebral anemia and fainting, such as
pooling of blood elsewhere in the body or spasm of the vessels
supplying the brain. 52

Guttmann and Winterstein have said 53 that loss of consciousness
("awareness of external environment and accessibility") is the com-
monest symptom of head injury. The following symptoms have
been listed by Jaspers 54 as characteristic of such disturbances in
consciousness, though all are not present in every patient, (a) De-
tachment from reality; difficulties in apprehension and in fixing
attention, (b) Disorientation. (c) Disconnected and incompre-

52 S. Cobb, A Preface to Nervous Disease, Baltimore: Wood, 1937, 72-3.
63 E. Guttmann and C. E. Winterstein, Disturbances of consciousness after head injuries,
J. Ment. Set., 84, 1938, 347.
54 K. Jaspers, Allgememe Psychopathologtc, Berlin: Springer, 1923, 101.

128 STATES OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

hensible behavior, (d} Disturbances of retention and memory at the
time, as well as subsequent amnesia; slowness of thought processes.
An analysis of the subjective states through which boxers pass after
being knocked out has been made by Guttmann and Winterstein. 50
They observed that the patient recovering from an uncomplicated
knockout never passes through delirium, but for a time afterward
the sensations may be blurred and vague and the visual field narrow.
Commonly there is a feeling of depersonalization and detachment
from one's body. More serious cases may take quite some time to
come to. During recovery such patients are slow in response and,
though not correctly oriented, are not disturbed by hallucinations.
If they make mistakes, it is generally during the period of amnesia
after they come to.

Case III of Chapter II (p. 48) is an example of such disturbance
of consciousness. This boxer was in a twilight state for thirty-six
hours before he suddenly awakened, reacting normally as far as his
friends could tell, but having a gap in memory covering not only
the period of lack of control of his body, but also a time afterward
when he seemed to behave normally. During a long period he
seemed conscious in every sense (unless we consider his sluggish
reflexes as poor discrimination), but afterward it appeared from
his report that he had been unconscious (UNREMEMBERING as well as
UNAWARE OF DISCRIMINATION) all the time.

There is no certainty about what goes on in the skull after a head
injury, but Guttmann and Winterstein mention 56 four sorts of ex-
planations which have been suggested. These are: (a) a molecular
concussion of the whole brain substance; () abnormal intracranial
pressure; (c) anoxemia, hemorrhages, or other circulatory abnormal-
ities; and (d) localized effects on some part of the central nervous
system, e.g., the vestibular mechanism or the medulla. Insufficiency
of data makes these no more than theories.

Penfield has made reference 57 to a pathological state of conscious-

65 E. Guttmann and C. E. Winterstein, op. cit., 347-51.

lbid., 349-50.

57 W. Penfield, The cerebral cortex in man, I, Arch. Neurol. and Psychiat., 40, 1938,

ANESTHESIA 129

ness much like that which follows head injuries the postepileptic
automatic state. He reported that patients in this condition are in
full control of their bodies but are unaware of what they do. They
may answer questions and obey commands or may react violently
to interference. As in posttraumatic states, acts in the postepileptic
condition are not remembered afterward.

ANESTHESIA

Local anesthesia makes the individual regionally unconscious

(UNSENSING, SENSORY TRACT INCAPABLE OF CONVEYING STIMULI). The

subjective proof of this is that the patient feels no pain, pressure, or
other sensation from the part of the body anesthetized. Objectively,
he does not exhibit behavior such as we have come to connect with
painful stimuli. The work of several experimenters has shown 58
that the order of disappearance of sensation in peripheral nerves
upon anesthetizing them locally is first cold, then warmth, then pain,
and finally pressure.

As to general anesthesia we know that there are many levels.
For instance, under ether there are four recognized states: analgesia,
excitement, surgical anesthesia, and respiratory paralysis. The third
stage is commonly subdivided into three or four planes of increas-
ing depth. Various responses such as reactions to pain, coughing,
vomiting, eye movements, pupil dilatation and contraction, action
of the intercostal muscles, and maintenance of muscular tenseness-
change at certain levels, and these changes are observed in clinical
practice in order to determine the level of anesthesia. Magnus has
carefully detailed 59 the order in which an extensive series of postural
and balance reflexes disappear under anesthesia. Such evidence
shows that in some way general anesthetics put one nervous center
after another out of operation. The mechanism by which general
anesthetics exert this effect is not known, and the theories on the

58 C/. P. Bard (cd.), op. cit., 77.

59 R. Magnus, Korperstcllung, Berlin: Springer, 1924.

130 STATES OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

subject need not be considered here, for they deal with cellular
physical chemistry. 60

Numerous introspective studies of going under and coming out
of anesthesia have been conducted. Making such reports seems to
have been a fad of the 1890*5 and ipoo's. Few of these are of any
value, for they refer to such incomprehensible experiences as a sense
of "the unity of consciousness" 61 or a clear sense of the anesthetic
drug passing into the capillaries. 62 Most such investigations, how-
ever, indicated clearly that the various sensory and motor abilities
disappear at different times, so confirming the objective proofs of
this that we have mentioned. Jones, for example, said 63 that hearing
went first; then the other senses, vision among the last; then the
problem-solving ability and memory imagery. In a report of com-
paratively recent work, Ranschburg claimed 64 to have found evi-
dence of a continuous gradation under anesthesia from self-con-
sciousness down to a barely conscious state. At a deeper stage, which
he calls a "purely vegetative level," he found no indication of any
processes that could be called conscious.

DREAM STATES

Most writers on dreams consider them to be unconscious (because
they occur during sleep in which one is UNRESPONSIVE TO STIMULA-
TION). Moreover, much Freudian theory depends on dream content
being unconscious (PSYCHOANALYTIC MEANING). A diametrically op-
posite position is maintained by Washburn, 63 who classified dream-
ing as a conscious state. This follows from her motor theory that
muscular activity is consciousness. Dreams, then, are the conscious-
ness accompanying the limited motion that goes with incomplete

60 Cf. H. K. Beecher, The Physiology of Anesthesia, N. Y.: Oxford University Press,
1938, 20-46.

C1 H. Spencer, The Principles of Psychology, N. Y.: Appleton, 1901, I, appendix, 636.

6J E. E. Jones, The waning of consciousness under chloroform, Psychol. Rev., 16, 1909,
50.

63 Ibid., 51-4.

64 P. Ranschburg, Beitrage zum Verhalten der Reflexe, Automatismen und bewussten
Funktioncn m schembaf unbewussten Zustanden, Ztschr. /. Psychol., 129, 1933, 338-52.

05 M. F. Washburn, op. cit., 17.

DREAM STATES 131

relaxation during imperfect sleep. The fitfulness of these move-
ments, she said, is responsible for the fragmentary and incoherent
character of dreams.

Cobb has said 66 that dreaming is probably localized in the cortex.
Dreams, however, occur at times when there is every reason to
believe that the cortical vigilance is lowered under anesthesia, in
sleep, in certain epileptic conditions. We know practically nothing
about the physiology of dreaming, so that almost our whole treat-
ment of dreams must be psychological. All scientific students of
dreams will admit, however, that in some way the physiological
tensions and disequilibria of the dreamer, as well as the sensations
he receives during sleep from his environment, do affect the content
of his dreams. 67

The subjective report of any dreamer tells us that the experience
of dreaming has elements of waking consciousness more, some
say, than the hypnagogic state. The common report is, however,
that it has an "unreal" character. Certainly the events of most
dreams could not happen in real life. Penfield described 68 similar
feelings of unreality in dream states which certain epileptic patients
experience. They seem to experience feelings of strangeness and
unexplained familiarity, to see scenes from their past lives, and at
the same time, by a double awareness which Jackson has termed
"mental diplopia," they realize that this is all unreal and that they
are having a fit.

This dissociation from the world of everyday is the main subjec-
tive characteristic of dreams. It appears to be a separate existence
related to the waking life but not bound by its rules and standards.
For instance, there is the story of the composing of a jingle which*'
has since become so much public property that no one seems to
know who wrote it. 69 As the story goes, the author dreamed one

66 S. Cobb, op. ctt., 71.

07 Cf. S. Freud, The Basic Writings of Sigmund Freud, ed. A. A. Brill, New York:
Random House, 1938 (The Interpretation of Dreams), 276 S.

68 W. Penfield, op. cit., 431.

69 Mrs. Amos Pinchot has repeatedly been incorrectly said to have been the author of
this quatrain. She denies any responsibility for it, however, and the true author appears to
be shrouded in anonymity.

132 STATES OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

night that he had written a poem of such ultimate truth that he
was immediately acclaimed to be the greatest poet and philosopher
of all time. He immediately rose and scribbled it down, and the
next morning found that he had written:

Hogamus Higamus
Men are Polygamous
Higamus Hogamus
Women Monogamous.

Like impairment of judgment in dreams under ether was reported
by Oliver Wendell Holmes. 70 Experimentally he took ether and,
while under it, the key to all the mysteries of philosophy was re-
vealed to him. As he came to, he still remembered it, and at the
first possible moment scrawled the all-embracing truth on paper.
The words were: "A strong smell of turpentine prevails throughout."
To indulge in the speculative delights of the nervous system, one
might picture dreaming as the incidental function of the cortex "at
play," when some lower center has assumed the vigilance necessary
to control the body. Subjectively this process has characteristics of
consciousness; it depends on memory of the past; it is vaguely
responsive to present bodily conditions; but there is temporarily
no responsibility to act in a real world. Some such theory of dreams
is held by psychoanalysts. It explains all facts adequately, but it has
too few of them to explain. Freudians believe that, because dreams
are removed from reality and because the censorship of repression
is relaxed, unconscious (PSYCHOANALYTIC MEANING) wishes in thinly
disguised form may slip into dream consciousness which could never
be known in the waking state. Case IV of Chapter II (pp. 49-50)
illustrates how Freud believed this occurs.

REVERIE

This unconscious (UNRESPONSIVE TO STIMULATION) state has much
in common with dreaming. Subjective report puts it midway be-

70 O. W. Holmes, Mechanism in thought and morals, in Pages from an Old Volume of
Life, Boston: Houghton Mifflm, 1895, 283-4.

CONCLUSIONS 133

tween waking and dreaming, and it can easily shade off into either
one. Many psychoanalysts believe that fantasies of reverie represent
repressed wishes of the individual much as dreams do. The thematic
apperception test of Morgan and Murray, 71 in which the subjects
create stories suggested to them by pictures shown to them, is based
on this belief. It is an attempt to reveal the needs which motivate
the subjects' behavior by evoking fantasies. They maintain this
because of the many times the basic desires of people appear only
thinly veiled in their reveries. An example is Case V of Chapter II
(p. 51), the law student who could not read his texts because of the
visions that appeared on the pages.

A little psychological experimentation on states of day-dreaming
has been done. Travis reported 72 finding differences in auditory
threshold during reverie between suggestible normal subjects, hys-
terics, and psychoneurotics, on the one hand, and negativistic nor-
mal subjects and schizophrenics, on the other. He believed 73 that
the ability which suggestible people show to become somewhat
dissociated during crystal-gazing gives heightened sensory acuity,
and resistance to suggestion, which negativistic individuals show,
has the opposite effect. Much more careful work by Bartlett 74 did
not confirm Travis's findings.

Jacobson has studied experimentally 75 the effect of muscular re-
laxation upon reverie. He found, from introspective reports, that
the thought processes and images accompanying reverie gradually
diminish with progressive relaxation.

CONCLUSIONS

In analyzing these various states of unconsciousness (UNRESPON-
SIVE TO STIMULATION), we have found that, though they have dif-

71 H. A. Murray et al., Explorations in Personality, New York: Oxford University Press,

1938, 530-45.

72 L. E. Travis, Suggestibility and negativism as measured by auditory threshold during
reverie, /. Abnorm. and Soc. Psychol., 18, 1924, 350-68.

73 L. E. Travis, Changes in auditory acuity during the performance of certain mental
tasks, Amer. /. Psychol., 37, 1926, 141.

74 M. R. Bartlett, The auditory threshold in reverie, Arch, of Psychol., 27, 1935, No. 182.

75 E. Jacobson, Progressive Relaxation, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1929*
164-89.

134 STATES OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

ferent causes, the most adequate physiological explanation of all of
them is that there is some interference with the vigilance of some
level of the central nervous system. This they have in common. They
differ probably because of the level affected and the degree to which
its vigilance is lowered. Though these states can be introspectively
distinguished at times, they fade into each other just as the levels of
the nervous system merge. A typical hypnotic trance, however, can
be subjectively differentiated from typical sleep, or reverie, or the
other conditions mentioned in this chapter. Individuals in these
various states, moreover, while always behaviorally unresponsive to
some stimulation, vary greatly as to what stimuli bring response and
what do not.

CHAPTER VI
SUBLIMINAL UNCONSCIOUSNESS

The synonyms subliminal and subthreshold are in the preferred
vocabulary of investigators in all the fields that deal with uncon-
sciousness (ANY MEANING). The cornerstone of an eminently re-
spectable branch of academic psychology, psychophysics, is the
theory of the threshold and subliminal stimulation which Fechner,
influenced by Herbart, developed 1 early in the history of experi-
mental psychology. Subliminal has been used by students of psychic
research, like F. W. H. Myers, 2 to characterize phenomena of the
hinterland that they explore. Some psychological clinicians have
referred 3 to unconscious (SUBLIMINAL STIMULI AFFECTING ORGANISM)
content, which is not repressed but merely below the threshold of
consciousness, in explanations of the behavior of certain patients. In
physiology, also, the laws of the threshold have been carefully estab-
lished experimentally and are fundamental in explaining the reac-
tion of nervous tissues to stimulation.

As originally conceived, the limen was a point on the scale of
intensity of ideas or sensations below which they were unconscious
(usually in the sense of INCOMMUNICABLE). Such a dividing line has
come to seem arbitrary and valueless to many psychologists, espe-
cially to those behaviorists who consider discrimination to be the
only criterion of consciousness. To them any activity of the organism
is conscious (if the word is to be used at all), and there is no ap-
parent distinction between actions that are conscious and those that
are not. Speaking as a behaviorist, Lashley wrote 4 that the dynamic

1 G. T. Fechner, Elemcntc der Psychophysit^ (1860), 2(1 cd., Leipzig: Breitkopf und
Hartel, 1889.

2 F. W. H. Myers, Human Personality, New York: Longmans, Green, 1903, I, 14-5.

3 C. G. Jung, Die Beziehungen zunschen dem Ich und dem Unbewussten, Darmstadt:
Reichl, 1928, 1 1 -2.

*K. S. Lashley, The behavioristic interpretation of consciousness II, Psychol. Rev., 30,
1923, 341.

135

136 SUBLIMINAL UNCONSCIOUSNESS

features of conscious processes are in no way different from those
of unconscious processes. He believed, furthermore, that theorists had
established such a complicated hierarchy of states unconscious,
subconscious, preconscious, etc. because even for introspectionists
unconsciousness merged indistinguishably through this hierarchical
continuum into consciousness.

A statement like Lashley's would today be contested hotly by most
depth psychologists, who find between consciousness and uncon-
sciousness (PSYCHOANALYTIC MEANING) as great a gulf as between the
world of the living and the underworld of Pluto. To them these
worlds are watertight compartments of the personality, commu-
nicating only at a passage guarded by a Cerberus "censor" which,
unless bribed or outwitted, will let nothing through from Avernus
to the light of day.

Once the psychoanalysts have told us that their unconsciousness
is as different from consciousness as night is from day, however,
they admit that there is a twilight between the dark and the day-
light. This intermediate state, this way-station across an unbridge-
able chasm, the Freudians have named preconsciousness. To this
level unconscious (PSYCHOANALYTIC MEANING) ideas, which Freud
told us 5 can never reach consciousness unaltered because they are
anathema there, can pass, and from here they may slip into con-
sciousness. Preconsciousness is a decompression chamber in which
ideas, after having tunneled underground, stay awhile to have the
air pressure gradually lowered until they can once again go out
into the outside world without suffering "the bends." The psycho-
analysts have recognized a difference between unconsciousness
(PSYCHOANALYTIC MEANING) and consciousness and have desired to
keep the two entirely apart, but even their most orthodox theorists
have been unable to achieve this divorce and still explain all the
facts.

These are the facts: On the one hand, consciousness and uncon-
sciousness (UNAVAILABLE TO AWARENESS) are introspectively dis-

*S. Freud, The Basic Writings of Sigmund Freud, ed. A. A. Brill, New York: Random
House, 1938 (The Interpretation of Dreams) > 491.

NEUROPHYSIOLOGY OF THE THRESHOLD 137

similar. [Whether behavior is different when it is determined by
conscious processes from when it is regulated by unconscious
(UNAVAILABLE TO AWARENESS) processes is a problem for future chap-
ters.] On the other hand, consciousness merges into unconsciousness
(UNAVAILABLE TO AWARENESS) through imperceptible gradations like
the various states considered in the last chapter.

In such a case an arbitrary distinction must be made at some
point. During the month of Ramadan, when the night has worn so
far into day that a black thread can be told from a white, Moham-
medans must stop their feasting of the night and fast until the next
dusk. Because dawn does not come up like thunder in most of the
lands of Islam, the Koran decrees this ritual for making the neces-
sary distinction between night and day. Such a ritual is the deter-
mination of the limen, which is a boundary conventionally decided
upon merely because such a division is useful.

A final fact, which is abundantly illustrated in succeeding pages,
is that an individual may perform actions which have no subjective
representation in consciousness (COMMUNICABLE and perhaps also
AWARE OF DISCRIMINATION). To strict behaviorists such a statement
of lack of correspondence between discrimination and subjective
experience would have no meaning. To depth psychologists the fact
that the limen of consciousness differs from the limen of discrimina-
tion is of primary importance. This is their battleground.

NEUROPHYSIOLOGY OF THE THRESHOLD

Although the concept of the threshold was developed in psychol-
ogy originally without any physiological basis, today any scientific
interpretation of subliminal phenomena must be made in the light
of the fundamental physiological data concerning the nature of the
threshold, especially in neural tissues. 6 The minimal intensity of
stimulation which will cause a neurone to conduct an impulse is
the threshold intensity. Various nerves and single neurones differ in

6 Cf. P. Bard (ed.)> Macleod's Physiology in Modern Medicine, 9th cd., St. Louis:
Mosby, 1941, 8-14.

138 SUBLIMINAL UNCONSCIOUSNESS

their threshold values. If, however, a stimulus is strong enough to
excite a neurone, the resulting impulse carried by the neurone will,
according to the all-or-none law, be of a specific, invariable magni-
tude, no matter how strong the stimulus.

An important principle of subthreshold stimulation which has
now received abundant proof 7 is the summation of subliminal
stimuli, also known as latent addition. If two or more stimuli of
subthreshold intensity reach a neurone within a brief interval, ex-
citation can occur and an impulse can pass down the neurone. This
fact indicates that the first stimulus begins some local process with
which the second summates to produce the neural impulse. That
several subliminal stimuli may finally cause a response has impor-
tant implications for the psychological theory of unconsciousness
(SUBLIMINAL STIMULI AFFECTING ORGANISM). It suggests that repeti-
tion of stimuli which appear too weak to elicit response and are
unable to give rise to subjective report may still affect a person's
behavior.

Another important neurophysiological discovery, now well au-
thenticated, is that it is possible to distinguish in all somatic nerve
trunks at least three types of fibers, which Erlanger and Gasser have
called 8 A, B, and C fibers. The A fibers are the largest, and have
the lowest threshold. The B and C fibers are smaller; the thresholds
of B fibers are higher than A and of C higher than B. Composed as
it is of different sorts of fibers, a total nerve trunk has more than
one threshold. It is thus quite possible that stimuli which are ade-
quate to pass the thresholds of fibers that regulate certain motor
reactions might nevertheless be of insufficient intensity to excite
fibers going to the level of the nervous system which is at the
moment mediating consciousness.

Certain data hint that there may be such levels of functional in-
tegration of the nervous system, distinguishable by different
thresholds. The present facts, however, are in conflict.

7 E.g., E. A. Blair, The effect of brief currents on axons, especially in relation to the
postulated nonconclucted response, Amer. J. Physiol., 123, 1938, 455-70.

8 J. Erlanger and H. S. Gasser, The action potential in fibers of slow conduction in

NEUROPHYSIOLOGY OF THE THRESHOLD 139

(a) Burge, Wickwirc, Orth, Neild, and Elhardt studied the
electrical potentials of the cerebral cortex in anesthetized dogs.
Under these circumstances the cortex was electropositive in rela-
tion to the sciatic nerve. As the etherization became less, this
polarity was reversed, and when the anesthesia was reapplied there
was a change back. This occurred repeatedly. Similar results were
obtained in unconsciousness (presumably UNRESPONSIVE TO STIMULA-
TION) from bleeding and suffocation. The authors concluded that
there is a threshold potential of the cortex below which an animal
loses consciousness. Since it is known that inactive tissue is electro-
positive and active tissue electronegative, it was assumed that con-
sciousness is related to activity of the cortex.

() Neet experimentally compared 10 verbal, manual, and condi-
tioned responses as methods of report in determining the threshold
of auditory intensity. If the thresholds as reported by these three
sorts of response differed, that would be presumptive evidence for
threshold organization levels in the central nervous system. Though
he found that verbal report yielded lower thresholds than either
manual or one sort of conditioned response, another method of
conditioned response gave about the same threshold values as verbal
report. He assumed, therefore, that the nature of the response
mechanism need not alter the threshold of auditory stimulation.

(c) Similarly, Newhall and Rodnick could find 11 no difference
in visual thresholds as reported verbally, by hand key and by foot
pedal.

These three researches leave unsettled the question of whether in
the nervous system there are various levels of organization with
different thresholds, but the definitely positive results of the first
study are by no means canceled by the last two, especially since
they used such widely different approaches. This is an important
field for further study.

9 W. B. Burge, G. C. Wickwirc, O. S. Orth, H. W. Neilcl, and W. P. Elhardt, A study
of the electrical potential of the cerebral cortex in relation to anesthesia, consciousness and
unconsciousness, Amer. J. Physiol., 116, 1936, 19-20.

10 C. C. Neet, A comparison of verbal, manual, and conditioned-response methods in
the determination of auditory intensity thresholds, /. Exper. Psychol., 19, 1936, 401-16.

11 S. M. Newhall and E.,H. Rodnick, The influence of the repor ting-response upon the
report, Amer. ]. Psychol., 48, 1936, 316-25.

140 SUBLIMINAL UNCONSCIOUSNESS

THE TRANSITION FROM THE PHYSIOLOGY TO THE
PSYCHOLOGY OF THE THRESHOLD

The application of the physiology of the threshold to psychology
is not easy. The tendency in present-day academic psychology is to
consider that Fechner's discussion of "negative sensations" caused
by subthreshold stimuli is of little or no importance. If a stimulus
is of subliminal intensity, the argument runs, it may have some local
effect on the nerve, but, since it does not produce behavior or a
sensation, it need not be considered. In such a tone Boring wrote: 12

The phenomena of both sensation and memory follow the all-or-
none principle. ... It has been conventional to speak of 'strong
subliminal associations,' as if subliminal associations were of various
strengths, but the inference as to subliminal strength is indirect and
uncertain. So also a sensation either occurs from stimulation or it
does not. If it does not, it has no demonstrable intensity. Fechner
talked about negative (subliminal) degrees of intensity, but that is
not good psychology to-day. Above the limen we can sense degrees
of intensity, but introspection cannot directly measure these degrees.
We are forced to comparison, and there again we meet an all-or-none
principle. Either we can observe a difference or we cannot. Introspec-
tion as to the amount of difference is not quantitatively reliable.

Such application of the all-or-none law not only (as it was origi-
nally formulated) to a single nerve fiber, but even to whole be-
havior patterns, so denying that stimuli not producing sensations
or overt response have any effect on the organism, 13 has resulted in
relative neglect of experimentation on unconscious (SUBLIMINAL

STIMULI AFFECTING ORGANISM) behavior.

THE VARIABILITY OF THE THRESHOLD

In questions of the threshold, physiology fades imperceptibly into
psychology. It has been demonstrated 14 that a lowering of the blood

12 E. G. Boring, The Physical Dimensions of Consciousness, New York: Century, 1933,
219. By permission of the author and of D. Appleton-Ccntury Company.

13 Cf. R. Dodge, Theories of inhibition, II, Psychol. Rev., 33, 1926, 187.

14 J. La Barre and P. Destree, L'mfluence des variations glyccmiques sur la motilitc
astrique, Comptes Rendus Soc. Btol., 103, 1930, 532-4.

THE VARIABILITY OF THE THRESHOLD HI

sugar level in a dog will cause the stomach contractions associated
with hunger to begin, and that an intravenous injection of glucose
will stop them. Murphy, Murphy, and Newcomb have interpreted 15
this sort of finding to indicate that changes in blood chemistry
alter thresholds of neural excitability. They believe that endocrine
secretions into the blood can operate similarly, and instance the
increased activity, emotionality, and general irritability characteris-
tic of patients suffering from hyperthyroidism. Hyposecretion of the
thyroid gland, conversely, acts to raise neural thresholds. Un-
doubtedly adrenal function, and quite likely the operation of all
parts of the endocrine system affect threshold levels. 16

Laboratory psychologists have been eager to study experimentally
a wide range of conditions which alter thresholds. Some of the psy-
chological factors which have been shown to cause variations in
judgments of the presence or absence of stimuli or comparison of
stimuli by human subjects are: 17 attention, difference in judgmental
processes* preguessing, influence of preceding experiments, inertia,
habituation of judgmental processes, changes of motivation, changes
in co-operation, doubt, unsuitable criteria of judgment, and time
of making judgments. If one or more of these factors operate to
lower a subject's threshold, a stimulus of which he would be uncon-
scious (SUBLIMINAL STIMULI AFFECTING ORGANISM) usually, can reach
his consciousness.

Investigations relating to "Heymans's law" have brought to light
other factors which affect the threshold. This "law" states that the
inhibitory power of a stimulus (as measured by the intensity of a
stimulus whose effect it can just completely inhibit) is proportional
to its intensity. The fact that one stimulus or one impulse can inhibit
another has interesting applications to the theory of unconscious-
ness (SUBLIMINAL STIMULI AFFECTING ORGANISM). It has frequently

15 G. Murphy, L. B. Murphy, and T. M. Newcomb, Experimental Social Psychology,
rev. ed., New York: Harper, 1937, 224-5.

16 Cf. e.g., G. H. Wang, The relation between 'spontaneous* activity and oestrous
cycle in the white rat, Comp. Psychol. Monog., 2, 1923, No. 6.

17 Cf. E. G. Boring, The control of attitude in psychophysical experiments, Psychol. Ret/..
27, 1920, 440-52; also F. C. Thorne, The psychophysical measurement of the temporal
course of visual sensitivity, Arch, of Psychol., 25, 1934, No. 170.

142 SUBLIMINAL UNCONSCIOUSNESS

been used, often carelessly, as a model of the mechanism of repres-
sion.

It is known that after an impulse passes along a neurone there is
a period during which the neurone is refractory and will not con-
duct another impulse if stimulated in the same way again. In other
words, one impulse can inhibit another from being conveyed by
the neurone. 18 Other kinds of inhibition may occur at the junctures
of neurones. It may be that subthreshold stimuli can in like manner
make the neurone refractory to other stimuli, but recent research 19
makes this questionable. The following experiments show how
inhibition can alter thresholds:

(a) Heymans with human subjects has shown 20 that simultane-
ously presented visual, auditory, or taste stimuli raise the visual
thresholds.

() Spencer studied 21 in rats the inhibition of one visual stimulus
by another simultaneously presented. He found definite individual
differences in susceptibility to such inhibition.

(c) Spencer and Cohen, 22 using the same method as Spencer used
in (), discovered a large variability of the threshold of individual
rats over a period of fifty days. A difference of over two hundred
per cent between the highest and the lowest threshold values was
found during this period. The effect of sleep and freshness upon the
threshold was also definitely demonstrated. 23

(d) Dodge performed experiments 24 with human subjects which
showed that, under certain favorable circumstances, stimuli too
faint to elicit recordable muscular contractions may, on occasion,
so affect the neuromuscular system that a succeeding stimulus which
would normally evoke a marked response will have no effect.

18 C/. R. Dodge, op. cit., 173.

19 E. A. Blair, he. at.

20 Cf. L. T. Spencer, The concept of the threshold and Heymans' law of inhibition, I,
/. Exper. PsychoL, n, 1928, 88-9.

21 //</., 88-97.

22 L. T. Spencer and L. H. Cohen, The concept of the threshold and Heymans' law of
inhibition, II, /. Exper. PsychoL, 194-201.

23 Ibid., Ill, 281-92.

24 R. Dodge, op. /., 182-7.

THE VARIABILITY OF THE THRESHOLD 143

(e) Collier found 25 that a subliminal stimulus in the periphery of
the visual field under certain conditions modifies responses, but
that a cutaneous subliminal stimulus does not summate with a
visual subliminal stimulus of the same shape but acts as an inhibit-
ing distractor. This confirms "Heymans's law."

A further series of experiments also has demonstrated that the
level of the threshold is affected by other stimulation, but these
researches have given results contradicting "Heymans's law." These
studies have shown that simultaneously presented stimuli lower,
rather than raise, the threshold.

(a) It has been demonstrated by Kravkov and by Hartmann 20
that the acuity of one eye can be increased (*>., the threshold be
lowered) when the other eye is simultaneously stimulated by a bright
light. A minority of Hartmann's subjects, however, confirmed
"Heymans's law" by developing diminished acuity with a light in the
other eye.

(b) Hartmann also showed 27 that simultaneous stimulation
through the auditory, olfactory, or tactual modalities is capable of
increasing visual acuity.

(c) Beitel showed 28 that, within certain visual angles, two stimu-
lus patches have a lower threshold when presented together than
when exposed separately. The threshold decreases, moreover, as the
distance of their separation is lessened. These results were interpreted
to indicate that the subliminal stimuli summate.

(d) It has been demonstrated by Karn, 29 in research similar to
Beitel's, that the intensity necessary to produce supraliminal stimula-
tion in one patch of light diminishes as the intensity of an adjacent

25 R. M. Collier, An experimental study of the effects of subliminal stimuli, Psychol.
Monog., 52, 1940, No. 236.

26 S. W. Kravkov, Ucber erne zcntrale Beinflussung der Sehscharfc, Graefes Arch. /.
Ophthal., 124, 1930, 76-86; also G. W. Hartmann, I. The increase of visual acuity in one
eye through illumination of the other, /. Exper. Psychol., 16, 1933, 383-92.

27 G. W. Hartmann, II. Changes in visual acuity through simultaneous stimulation of
other sense organs, /. Exper. Psychol., 16, 1933, 393-407.

28 R. J. Beitel, Jr., Spatial summation of subliminal stimuli in the retina of the human
eye, /. Gen. Psychol., 10, 1934, 311-27.

29 H. W. Karn, The function of intensity in the spatial summation of subliminal
stimuli in the retina, /. Gen. Psychol., 12, 1935, 95-107.

144 SUBLIMINAL UNCONSCIOUSNESS

patch of subliminal light is increased. These findings were inter-
preted to prove that subliminal stimuli summate.

This series of experiments seems definitely to contradict the pre-
ceding series. The only conclusion which can be reached is that
the threshold can be altered, even by subliminal stimuli, but what
determines the direction of alteration is not yet known.

THE STATISTICAL NATURE OF THE THRESHOLD

Many conditions within the organism and outside of it may change
the threshold. By reviewing those determining conditions which
have been mentioned, we may see that their effect can be either long-
lasting or transient. Since they are continually in flux, the threshold
will be forever changing. Any view of the threshold as a fixed and
permanent level is incorrect. The limen of a single neurone may be
determined with a good deal of accuracy if its environment is kept
constant. The values obtained from trial to trial will vary only
slightly. When an entire individual is involved in the responses
necessary for determining a psychological threshold, there is great
variation from trial to trial, no matter how constant an environ-
ment is maintained.

Because of this variability of the total organism, the threshold
must be determined statistically. It is commonly taken to be that
intensity at which the stimulation is reported to be present just fifty
per cent of the times it is presented. The choice of this point is en-
tirely arbitrary and conventional. (From time to time individual
experimenters have decided to employ other statistical definitions of
the threshold.) The threshold, then, is a statistically determined
point in what is really a continuous function as stimulation gradu-
ally becomes stronger it is reported more and more frequently. The
conditions may all be just right at one time, so that an exceedingly
slight stimulus, well below the statistical limen, is perceived. Another
time a strongly intense stimulus may not be noticed. This fact has
been neglected by many who have worked with the threshold of
stimulation. In the rest of this chapter several researches are men-
tioned which have assumed improperly that because a specific stimu-

SUBLIMINAL PERCEPTION 145

lus was below threshold intensity determined statistically, it was
therefore unperceived and the observer was unconscious (SUBLIMINAL

STIMULI AFFECTING ORGANISM) of it.

SUBLIMINAL PERCEPTION

Not only can subliminal stimuli by inhibition and facilitation
alter thresholds, but through the years it has been demonstrated
that they can affect behavior directly. Our actions are determined by
many things we cannot report.

The experimentation on direct response to subliminal stimulation
falls under two headings: subliminal perception and subliminal
conditioning or learning. First, subliminal perception.

(a) In the middle of the last century Suslowa reported 30 work
with the esthesiometer. The esthesiometer is essentially a compass
for determining the two-point limen, sometimes two points being
put down and sometimes one, and the subject being asked to tell
whether he feels one or two. The limen is the distance apart the
points can be before they are recognized as two rather than one.
Suslowa found that under electrical stimulation esthesiometer sensi-
tivity was lowered, even when the current was subliminal. This
result seems to illustrate operation of "Heymans's law." The esthe-
siometer was used again much later by de Laski, who reported' 31 on
the basis of experiments that "subliminal separations" of the esthe-
siometer-points can be discriminated. By "subliminal" he meant
below the statistical threshold. Stimuli below this mathematically de-
termined point gave rise to sensations of shapes intermediate in form
between one dot and two, such as a dumb-bell or a paddle. Decisions
as to whether one or two points were being presented were based on
the sort of shape sensed. Friedline, working on de Laski's general
problem, obtained results 32 which she held to show an "extreme
delicacy of discrimination" between various cutaneous patterns

30 M. Suslowa, Verandcrungen dcr Hautgcfiilc unter dcm Einflussc clcctnschcr Reizung,
Ztschr. /. Rationclle Med., 18, 1863, 155-60.

31 E. de Laski, On perceptive forms below the level of the two-point limen, Amcr. f.
Psychol., 27, 1916, 569-71.

32 C. L. Friedline, Discrimination of two cutaneous patterns below the two-point limen,
Amer. J. Psychol., 29, 1918, 400-19.

146 SUBLIMINAL UNCONSCIOUSNESS

below the level of the two-point esthesiometer limen, statistically de-
termined. This delicate discrimination was probably based on those
individual cases at this "subliminal" level which were actually
strong enough to be perceived.

() Another sort of experimentation on subliminal perception was
begun by Peirce and Jastrow, who reported 83 experiments with
weights less than one j.n.d. apart. (A j.n.d., or just noticeable differ-
ence, between weights is the increase in mass which on the average
is necessary to make one stimulus weight just recognizably heavier
than another. In any given case, however, sensory acuity might be
so increased that less than one j.n.d. could be perceived.) They dis-
covered that judgments of which was heavier were more often right
than wrong, though made with no confidence whatsoever. This
result has been amply borne out since that time. The difficulty with
considering this to be true subliminal perception is that half of the
cases could be guessed correctly by chance, and clues on only a few
others would give Peirce and Jastrow's results. These clues could
be obtained in those cases in which, owing to the constant fluctua-
tions of determinants of the threshold, sensory acuity might be so
increased that less than one j.n.d. could be perceived.

Fullerton and Cattell, 34 investigating the lifting of weights of al-
most identical mass, asked their subjects to judge whether one was
heavier or lighter than the other. They were then asked to rate the
degree of their confidence in this judgment either a (certain), b (less
confident), or c (uncertain). The subject was nearly always right
when he was willing to say #, less frequently right with , and still
less frequently with c. Even when the judgment was of the c rating
and little confidence was felt, he was more likely to be right than
wrong. Similar findings resulted from judging comparative intensi-
ties of visual stimuli. While working with judgments of weight,
whenever the subjects thought that two weights were equal, Urban 35

33 C. S. Peirce and J. Jastrow, On small differences in sensations, Mem. Nat. Acad. Set.,
3, 1884, 73-83-

34 G. S. Fullerton and J. McK. Cattell, On the perception of small differences, U. of
Penna. Pub., Phtlos. Series, 1892, No. 2.

35 F. M. Urban, The Application of Statistical Methods to the Problems of Psychophysics,
Philadelphia: Psychological Clinic Press, 1908, 99-100.

SUBLIMINAL PERCEPTION 147

made them guess whether one was heavier or lighter than the other.
He found that, although the weights were to all intents and purposes
subjectively equal, when they guessed on the basis of the differences
which were too small to be perceived, their percentage of correct
judgments was better than chance. These last two studies prove
their point much more satisfactorily than did the work of de Laski,
of Friedline, or of Peirce and Jastrow, for they include subjective
evidence that the weights on which guesses were made were per-
ceived as the same.

(c) Sidis reported" 6 four series of experiments. In the first series
he was the subject, using only his right eye, which had diminished
vision. Though he could not distinguish the shapes he saw with it,
he guessed correctly in 71.5 per cent of the cases whether a character
presented was letter or figure, so that his results were 21.5 per cent
above chance. In the second series, he guessed both whether the
object was letter or figure and also what the specific figure was,
with successes well above chance. In the third series, he got like
results from subjects with normal vision when cards bearing the
characters were held at such a distance that the subjects said that
they could not differentiate the characters. In the final series, proper
names on cards held at a like distance were distinguished better
than could be accounted for by chance. Sidis stated 37 that "all these
experiments tend to prove the presence within us of a secondary
subwaking self that perceives things which the primary waking self
is unable to get at." He said 38 that by self he meant no reference to
a person, but "mere consciousness." He developed a whole theory of
the threshold concerning normal and abnormal psychological phe-
nomena. In this he defined the subconscious as "consciousness below
the threshold of attentive personal consciousness." It is apparent
that he referred to thresholds of psychic states and not to neurological
limens. He believed 30 that James agreed with his general point of

36 B. Sidis, The Psychology of Suggestion, New York: Appleton, 1898.
87 Ibid., 171. By permission of D. Appleton-Ccntury Company.

38 B. Sidis, The theory of the subconscious, Proceedings Soc. Psychical Research, 26,
1912, 319.
Ibtd., 319-20.

148 SUBLIMINAL UNCONSCIOUSNESS

view. A like attitude has been expressed by Horst 40 within recent
years.

Stroh, Shaw, and Washburn reported 41 their modifications of
Sidis's experiments. With slightly better control they repeated his
experiment in letter differentiation, and also whispered the letters
subliminally. The letters A to / were used. All the results cor-
roborated Sidis and indicated subliminal perception. It may have
been that general outlines of the letters used could be seen and that
C and G would, for instance, appear different from /. This differ-
entiation might explain the fact that these results were above chance.
Coover performed 12 a well-controlled experiment based on Sidis's
and Stroh, Shaw and Washburn's procedure and found that sub-
liminal cues can be used unconsciously (INCOMMUNICABLE) by sub-
jects to produce "better-than-chance" results in guessing what dimly
seen or poorly heard stimuli are. Pillai repeated 43 work of this gen-
eral nature, which was reported in 1939. Typewritten letters too
small to be discriminated were shown to some subjects; to others
the names of letters were whispered subliminally. Forty subjects in
the visual experiment made a total of 10,125 guesses, and sixty sub-
jects in the auditory experiment made altogether 13,500 guesses. All
achieved scores significantly above chance. Scores improved as the
intensity of stimulation increased. There was no evidence of im-
provement with practice in the ability to guess. (Learning with
practice in a like situation was found in the experiments of the
author to be considered in the next section of this chapter.)

(d) In a study of the use of the divining rod, Barrett and Bester-
man concluded 44 that the movements of the rod were due to the
diviner's unconscious (INVOLUNTARY) movements of his muscles
resulting from his unconscious (UNAWARE OF DISCRIMINATION) per-

40 L. v. d. Horst, Het ontlerbewuste, Ned. Tijdschr. PsychoL, 5, 1937, 183-93 ( n t
viewed).

41 M. Stroh, A. M. Shaw, and M. F. Washburn, A study in guessing, Amer. J. Psychol. t
19, 1908, 243-5.

42 J. E. Coover, Experiments in Psychical Research at Leland Stanford Junior University,
Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1917 (not viewed).

43 R. P. B. K. Pillai, A study of the threshold in relation to the investigations on
subliminal impressions and allied phenomena, Brit. J. Educ. Psychol., 9, 1939, 97-8.

44 W. Barrett and T. Bestcrman, The Divming-Rod, London: Mcthuen, 1926, 275.

SUBLIMINAL PERCEPTION 149

ception of the object searched for. There has been much evidence
produced by Faraday and others 45 that the class of phenomena which
includes the motions of the Ouija board and spirit-rapping is to be
explained by such involuntary movements of suggestible individuals.
A similar interpretation can be made of the parlor game with the
so-called sex-determiner, a pendulum which, when held in the hand,
swings in an arc over a male and in a circle over a female. (If the
person suspending the pendulum gets the directions wrong, so will
the "sex-determiner.") The phenomenal achievements of the "mind-
reading" horse, Clever Hans, 40 can be explained by signals sent by
means of muscular motions of small magnitude which may have
been involuntary. Kennedy referred 47 to various cases of telepathy,
some of which have gained a great deal of notoriety, which it either
has been proved or is highly probable can be explained by percep-
tions of involuntary minimal muscular cues.

(e) In 1895 Hanscn and Lehmann suggested 48 that unconscious
(INVOLUNTARY) whispering cues explained the thought transference
of experiments of the Sidgwicks and Smith. 49 When the sender was
in the same room as the receiver, the results obtained were better
than chance, but when the two subjects were not in the same room
the results were not above chance. To investigate the basis for audi-
tory cues, Hanscn and Lehmann set up two parabolic sound reflec-
tors with the sender seated in the focus of one reflector and the
receiver in the focus of another at some distance away. Much as in a
whispering gallery, sounds made involuntarily by the sender could
be heard easily by the receiver. When the sender, knowing the pur-
pose of the experiment, tried to whisper very quietly, the messages
were received with significantly better than chance accuracy. Hansen'
and Lehmann also found that the mistakes made in their experiment

45 Cf. J. L. Kennedy, A methodological review of extra-sensory perception, Psychol.
Bull., 36, 1939, 60- 1.

4<J O. Pfungst, Clever Hans, trans. C. L. Rahn, New York: Holt, 1911.

47 J. L. Kennedy, op. at., 61-2.

48 F. C. C. Hansen and A. Lehmann, Ucbcr unwillkurliches Fliistern, Philos. Studien,
n, 1895, 471-530.

49 H. Sidgwick, Mrs. H. Sidgwick, and G. A. Smith, Experiments in thought-
transference, Proceedings Soc. Psychical Research, 6, 1889, 128-70.

150 SUBLIMINAL UNCONSCIOUSNESS

were much like those of the Sidgwick-Smith experiment, apparently
because of the ambiguity of the slight auditory cues. Kennedy re-
cently has repeated 50 the Hansen-Lehmann experiments with some
modification. The senders did not know of the reflectors and were
blindfolded before they were taken into the room to be seated in
front of the reflector. There they concentrated intently upon the
material they were to transfer. The receivers knew the plan of the
experiment, and found that the senders made audible cues which
were unconscious (INVOLUNTARY).

(/) Dunlap 51 in an early experiment used a modification of the
Miiller-Lyer illusion in which the angular lines were subliminal
shadows. (This illusion in its normal form consists of two horizontal
lines of equal length drawn one below the other. One has angular
lines running in from the tip toward the center of the line like a
double arrowhead, and the other has angular lines of the same length
running out like arrowheads pointing at the tips of the line. Al-
though both horizontal lines are of the same length, the first one,
with the arrowheads pointing outward from the center of the line,
almost invariably appears to be shorter than the other.) Dunlap
found that the illusion was present, though slight, under his
conditions.

Titchener and Pyle repeated 52 Dunlap's experiment with the
Miiller-Lyer illusion and reported opposite results. They added, fur-
ther, that they could not find any correlation between the degree of
imperceptibility of the arrowheads and the strength of the illusion.
Manro and Washburn 53 made cards of the Miiller-Lyer illusion
with inked horizontal lines and lightly penciled arrows. Following
Sidis's procedure, these workers exposed the stimuli at such a dis-
tance that the penciled lines were not visible to the subjects. Of ten

00 J. L. Kennedy, Experiments on "unconscious whispering," Psychol. Bull., 35, 1938,
526. Cf. also J. L. Kennedy, A methodological review of extra-sensory perception, op. ctt., 63.

51 K. Dunlap, Effect of imperceptible shadows upon the judgment of distance, Psychol.
Rev., 7, 1900, 435-53-

62 E. B. Titchener and W. H. Pyle, Effect of imperceptible shadows on the judgment of
distance, Proceedings Amer. Phtlos. Soc., 46, 1907, 94-109; also Amer. /. Psychol., 18, 1907,
388.

53 H. M. Manro and M. F. Washburn, Effect of imperceptible lines on judgment of
distance, Amer. /. Psychol., 19, 1908, 242.

SUBLIMINAL PERCEPTION 151

subjects, eight got no illusion, and two got some. Of 1,370 judg-
ments, 700 favored the illusion. The authors came to the question-
able conclusion that these results confirmed those of Titchener and
Pyle. Several years later a student of Hollingworth's carried on an
experiment 54 using essentially Manro and Washburn's procedure,
and found that seventeen out of twenty subjects got the illusion.
These findings were interpreted to indicate wide individual differ-
ences in susceptibility to the suggestion of the illusion. Bressler 55
more recently constructed a Miiller-Lyer illusion with gray papers,
making the arrows of grays less than one just noticeable difference
different from the background. He discovered that the Miiller-Lyer
illusion was effective even when the arrows were not visible to the
subject. The strength of the illusory effect varied directly with the
intensity of the arrows. Presuming that these results are the most
recent on the problem of the Miiller-Lyer illusion, we may figure
the score at present to stand at approximately three to one against
Titchener and Pyle, with one tie. The subliminal stimuli win.

(g) Newhall and Dodge have reported 50 that under certain con-
ditions colored after-images can result from "subliminal" chromatic
stimuli. In their experiments the stimuli were not seen because they
were first presented at a definitely subthreshold intensity and then
slowly made brighter so slowly that adaptation occurred to the
brightness and the color could not be seen. If the light was brought
to this intensity rapidly, color could be seen. This question has been
subjected to repeated experimental study. 57

(h) In 1904 Dunlap reported 58 discovering that subjects perceived
the interruption of inaudible sounds.

(/') Recently three similar experimental investigations of discrimi-
nation between subliminal stimuli have been carried on. Baker

54 Cf. H. L. Holhngworth, Advertising and Selling, New York: Applcton, 1913, 229-32.

65 J. Bressler, Illusion in the case of subliminal visual stimulation, /. Gen. Psychol., 5,
1931, 244-50.

56 S. M. Newhall and R. Dodge, Colored after images from unpcrccivcd weak chromatic
stimulation, /. Exper. Psychol., 10, 1927, 1-17.

67 Cf. ibid., 2.

58 K. Dunlap, Some peculiarities of fluctuating and inaudible sounds, Psychol. Rev., II,
1904, 308-18.

152 SUBLIMINAL UNCONSCIOUSNESS

used 59 both auditory and visual modalities. In the auditory he had
the subjects distinguish between subliminal dots and dashes; in the
visual, between subliminal perpendicularly crossed lines in the
"plus" and "multiplication sign" positions. He concluded from his
results in both sensory modalities that the verbal behavior of each
subject was influenced by stimuli that were "below the conscious
judgment threshold." He believed that therefore thresholds of con-
sciousness (COMMUNICABLE) are higher than physiological thresholds.
Finally, Baker stated that his findings showed that the influence of
subliminal stimuli on behavior increases as a function of the intensity
of the stimulation.

Williams has reported 00 that he projected from the rear upon a
ground glass screen three geometric figures (circle, triangle, square).
He presented these figures 594 times to eleven inexperienced sub-
jects in a prearranged order, showing each figure an equal number
of times. They were projected at an intensity below the limen. The
subjects reported which figure they thought of while looking at the
screen. Williams then chose the four subjects with the highest scores
for a second experiment. To each of these he presented eight series
of twenty-seven figures each, every series at a different level of
subliminal intensity, and then 108 control figures at zero illumina-
tion. He had the subjects report the degree of confidence with which
they guessed what the figure was: i = image seen clearly; 2 = doubt,
but something seen; 3 -pure guess, nothing seen. In tabulating the
results, only figures below the limen which gave rise to "3" judg-
ments were considered. The subjects were therefore unconscious of
the figures in two senses (SUBLIMINAL STIMULI AFFECTING ORGANISM
and UNABLE TO COMMUNICATE). All the results were well above
chance frequency, except in the control trials with no illumination,
when the results were of chance frequency. The experimenter re-
ported that no relation between the number of correct calls and
the intensity of the subliminal stimulation could be discovered.

59 L. E. Baker, The influence of subliminal stimuli upon verbal behavior, /. Exper.
Psychol., 20, 1937, 84-100.
00 A. C. Williams, Jr., Perception of subliminal visual stimuli, /. Psychol., 6, 1938, 187-99.

SUBLIMINAL CONDITIONING AND LEARNING 153

An experiment by the author also showed 01 that a subject is capable
of being unconscious (SUBLIMINAL STIMULI AFFECTING ORGANISM and
UNABLE TO COMMUNICATE) and conscious (DISCRIMINATING) of the
same thing at the same time. In this research five different geo-
metrical figures were projected upon the back of a transparent mirror
at a subliminal intensity. The subject, sitting on the other side of
what appeared to him to be an ordinary mirror, did not know that
the images were being projected at a low intensity through it. He
was told to use the mirror like a crystal to help him in the telepathic
experiment (guessing the geometrical figures) which he was to per-
form. Two types of subjects, naive (who did not know that the
figures were projected) and sophisticated (who did know), were
used. It was found that for both sorts of subjects the effect of the
projected figures in improving the guesses was demonstrable at a
lower illumination than that at which communicable consciousness
of images on the mirror developed. It was found that, as the illumi-
nation was increased, the correctness of calling the cards also in-
creased, even though the subject was unconscious (UNABLE TO COM-
MUNICATE) of the figures on the screen. When the naive subjects
finally learned at the end of the experiment that they were seeing
real images on the mirror, they showed reactions of surprise, whose
significance is considered in Chapter VIII.

Though, as has been pointed out, several of this series of researches
have serious faults, their total effect is to show beyond doubt that
subliminal stimuli affect behavior.

SUBLIMINAL CONDITIONING AND LEARNING

That unconscious (SEVERAL MEANINGS) learning exists will be
repeatedly demonstrated in this and succeeding chapters. In this
chapter the evidence concerning unconscious (SUBLIMINAL STIMULI
AFFECTING ORGANISM) learning and conditioning will be reviewed.
Cason and Katcher in 1933 said: 62 "Although it has been demon-

81 J. G. Miller, Discrimination without awareness, Amer. /. PsychoL, 52, 1939, 562-78.
62 H. Cason and N. Katcher, An attempt to condition breathing and eyelid responses to
a subliminal electric stimulus, /. Exper. Psychol., 16, iQ33f 831-42.

154 SUBLIMINAL UNCONSCIOUSNESS

strated that subliminal stimuli can influence bodily activities, it has
not yet been shown that a connection can be formed between a
subliminal stimulus and a conscious or unconscious response by the
process of learning." This statement followed their unsuccessful
attempts to condition breathing or eyelid responses to a subliminal
electric shock.

(a) In the same year, Newhall and Sears reported 03 finding that
finger withdrawal can be conditioned to stimuli below the statis-
tical psychophysical limen, but they were uncertain whether this
conditioning is accompanied by consciousness (COMMUNICABLE).
There was, of course, no certainty that the subjects were unconscious
(SUBLIMINAL STIMULI AFFECTING ORGANISM) of the stimuli just because
they were below the mere statistical psychophysical limen.

() Silverman and Baker tried 04 unsuccessfully to condition to a
subliminal shock an increase in breathing or in foot pressure. In
three out of twelve subjects, however, increased frequency of the
eyelid response was conditioned, and two of these were reconditioned
later. The subjects had no idea that they were receiving electric
shocks. Neet claimed 05 to have corroborated part of this work.

(c) More recently Baker reported 00 successful conditioning of the
pupillary response below what he referred to as "the absolute limen
of awareness of the stimulus," which is lower than the statistical
psychophysical limen that was used by Newhall and Sears. It is the
lowest intensity at which it is ever possible to be conscious (ABLE TO
COMMUNICATE) of a stimulus. Therefore no stimuli involved in the
development of this conditioning were perceived.

A careful reduplication of Baker's experiment by Wedell, Taylor,
and Skolnick showed 67 no pupillary conditioning to subliminal audi-

63 S. M. Newhall and R. R. Scars, Conditioning finger retraction to visual stimuli near
the absolute threshold, Comp. Psychol. Monog,, 9, 1933, No. 43.

64 A. Silverman and L. E. Baker, An attempt to condition various responses to subliminal
electrical stimulation, /. Exper. Psychol., 18, 1935, 246-54.

05 C. C. Ncet, A comparison of verbal, manual, and conditioned -response methods in
the determination of auditory intensity thresholds, /. Exper. Psychol., 19, 1936, 401-16.

66 L. E. Baker, The pupillary response conditioned to subliminal auditory stimuli,
Psychol. Monog., 50, 1938, No. 223.

67 C. H. Wedell, F. V. Taylor, and A. Skolnick, An attempt to condition the pupillary
response, /. Exper. Psychol., 27, 1940, 517-31.

SUBLIMINAL STIMULATION IN EVERYDAY LIFE 155

tory stimuli such as he reported. Of course these negative findings
do not disprove his work, but they reopen the whole question.

(d) In 1940 the author reported 68 a study of unconscious (SUB-
LIMINAL STIMULI AFFECTING ORGANISM) learning in which he used
the same transparent mirror apparatus described above (p. 153). The
geometrical figures were projected through the mirror at sub-
threshold intensity, and the subjects looking at the mirror guessed
figures one by one, entirely unconscious (UNABLE TO COMMUNICATE)
that the images were actually being projected through the screen.
After each guess they were told whether the call had been right or
wrong. Various motivations to learning were used: the desire to
please the experimenter; apparent increasing success; monetary re-
ward and punishment; and punishment by electric shock together
with reward by praise. It was found that under the last motivation
subjects could improve steadily in learning to call the cards. This
experiment showed that one can learn to respond to stimuli below
the absolute limcn which Baker used rather than the statistical
threshold.

In summing up the preceding group of researches we may say
that it is uncertain whether conditioning can be developed upon
subliminal stimulation but it has been demonstrated that learning
can be.

SUBLIMINAL STIMULATION IN EVERYDAY LIFE

Certain experiments illustrate the effect of subliminal stimulation

on the activity of the whole individual as it is seen in ordinary life.

(a) In 1912 Dunlap stated, presumably on the basis of his own

fio

experience:

The effect of the subconscious perception may be demonstrated,
even when recall is impossible. If you present to a subject a number
of cards containing simple marks or designs, some of which he has
previously seen subconsciously, and if you ask him to choose several

68 J. G. Miller, The role of motivation in learning without awareness, Amer. J. Psychol.,
53, 1940, 229-39.

69 K. Dunlap, A System of Psychology, New York: Scribncr's, 191:, 330. By permis-
sion of Charles Scnbner's Sons.

156 SUBLIMINAL UNCONSCIOUSNESS

from the number, he will be apt to choose the ones which were
previously seen. . . . [This is a typical experimental procedure] for
demonstrating the existence of subconscious perception.

It is hard to tell whether by saying the subject had seen the cards
subconsciously before, Dunlap meant that they were subliminal,
unattended to, or forgotten.

() Wolft did research 70 in which the subject's own voice, profile,
shape, picture of hands, mirrored writing, and other forms of ex-
pression were presented to him for comparison with similar forms
of expression by other subjects. In many cases the subject did not
recognize that these were his own. For instance only sixteen per
cent of the judges recognized their voices as their own. Nevertheless,
the individual usually judged his own forms of expression more
favorably than he judged the average of the others. Seldom would
he be neutral about judgments of his own forms of expression;
sometimes he rated them most unfavorably. Huntlcy has repeated 71
Wolff's work under much more carefully controlled conditions.
He was able to get photographs of the hands and part and full
profiles of the subject as well as a record of him reading a story,
without his being aware that they were made. Also a sample of
handwriting was taken. Huntley called all these "forms of expres-
sion." Six months later these forms of expression were presented to
each of the subjects for judgment in comparison with a series of
the same forms from others. Each subject was asked to rate the
forms of expression of each series in order of preference. Definite
statistical evidence was obtained that showed that in a predominant
number of cases a subject preferred his own form of expression. It
was found, however, by asking the subject when recognition of any
of the forms had taken place, if at all, that in many of the cases he
had been unconscious (UNABLE TO COMMUNICATE) that his own
form of expression was in the series. On several occasions a subject,

70 W. Wolff, Sclbstbeurtcilung und Fremdbcurteilung im wissenthchen und unwissendichcn
Versuch, Psyc/wl. Forsch., 16, 1932, 251-328. Cf. also W. Wolff, The experimental study
of forms of expression, and W. Wolff, Involuntary self-expression in gait and other move-
ments, Character and Personality, 2, 1933, 168-76 and 3, 1935, 327-44, respectively.

71 C. W. Huntley, Judgments of self based upon records of expressive behavior, /. Abnorm.
and Soc. PsychoL, 35, 1940, 398-427.

SUBLIMINAL STIMULATION IN EVERYDAY LIFE 157

on being told that one of the forms was his own, showed evidence
of surprise. Even when the subject was asked to point out his own
form of expression, he was frequently unable to do it. This fact is
proof that the differentiating characteristics were in these cases
subliminal. The ability of the judge to identify positively his own
forms from among other similar ones ranged from forty-eight per
cent for the hands, which was highest, to thirty-nine for the record-
ing of his voice, which was lowest. Why a subject rated his own
forms of expression higher than others', and why (as Huntley
found) this rating was more extreme when he was unconscious
(UNABLE TO COMMUNICATE) that he was rating his own, are inter-
esting questions of unconscious (INHERITED?) motivation worthy of
study to see why the presence of consciousness thus alters behavior.

This research is of significance here to show that, in terms of the
complicated behavior of individuals almost at the clinical level, it
can be definitely demonstrated that a person may be unconscious
(SUBLIMINAL STIMULI AFFECTING ORGANISM) and conscious (DISCRIM-
INATING) at the same time. The experience which Hankin related
concerning his observation of the flight of birds, Case VII of Chap-
ter II (p. 53), is another excellent example of this apparently para-
doxical condition.

Practical clinical insight into the nature of psychological phe-
nomena usually keeps well ahead of the discoveries of the labora-
tory. In this tradition Jung more than a decade ago saw the rami-
fications which the notion of the subliminal can take. He wrote: 72

The unconscious has also still another aspect: within its compass
are included not only the repressed content but also all such psychical
material as does not reach the threshold of consciousness. It is im-
possible to explain the sub-threshold character of all this material by
the principle of repression, otherwise a man, at the release of repres-
sion, would certainly achieve a phenomenal memory that forgot
nothing.

We call attention to the fact that, besides repressed material, every-
thing psychic which has become subliminal is found in the uncon-

72 C. G. Jung, Die Beziehungen zwischen dcm Ich und dem Unbeu/ussten, Darmstadt:
Reichl, 1928, n-2. (Author's translation.)

158 SUBLIMINAL UNCONSCIOUSNESS

scious, including subliminal sense perception. Moreover, we know,
not only from clinical experience but also on theoretical grounds,
that the unconscious also contains that material which has not yet
reached the threshold of consciousness.

Here Jung recognized that sense perceptions can be subliminal,
but he also contended that memories can fade away so that they no
longer can pass the threshold of consciousness and be recalled. Also
he made reference to unconscious (PSYCHOANALYTIC MEANING?)
content, presumably the hidden drives, instincts, and wishes of
which the psychoanalysts speak, which have never reached the
threshold of consciousness. Thus unnoticed stimulation, forgetting,
and hidden drives and wishes can all be interpreted in terms of
the limen.

CONCLUSIONS

Physiological studies of neural thresholds have proved that stimu-
lation must attain a certain minimal intensity if it is to affect a
person at all. Below that strength it cannot pass through sense
receptors and over afferent neurones. Psychological investigations
have shown that above a certain higher intensity of stimulation a
person is conscious (ABLE TO COMMUNICATE) of the stimulus. Be-
tween these two intensities is a range which the individual can per-
ceive and learn to discriminate even though he is unconscious (UN-
ABLE TO COMMUNICATE) of the stimuli. Until an oncoming train has
reached a certain point a signal light will not be bright enough to
affect the engineer; then it may determine his behavior even though
he cannot tell of seeing it. Finally, perhaps after his hand has
reached the air brake, he will become aware of it. The structure
and function of the nervous system arbitrarily determine what part
of the environment, which is constituted of imperceptible gradations
of stimulation, may reach the various levels of nervous integration.

CHAPTER VII
INATTENTIVE UNCONSCIOUSNESS

As there is continuity between the conscious and unconscious
(UNRESPONSIVE TO STIMULATION) states, and as there is a continuum
above and below the limen, so are there imperceptible gradations
between the focus and the margin of attention. This is the differ-
ence between the consciousness and subconsciousness of the French
school of clinical psychologists and of certain academic theorists.
Dunlap expressed this position 1 when he equated the term subcon-
sciousness with inattention and said that the degrees of consciousness
are degrees of vividness, clearness, or attention.

Freud stated that in distinguishing consciousness and precon-
sciousness he, too, recognized a gradation of attention. He carefully
explained, though, that this is not the same as the difference between
consciousness and unconsciousness (PSYCHOANALYTIC MEANING). His
most illuminating statement on attention was included in the de-
velopment of his theory of humor: 2

The comic process cannot stand examination by the attention, it
must be able to proceed absolutely unnoticed in a manner similar
to wit. But for good reasons, it would contradict the nomenclature
of "conscious processes" which I have used in The Interpretation
of Dreams, if one wished to call it of necessity unconscious. It rather
belongs to the foreconscious [i.e., preconscious], and one may use
the fitting name "automatic" for all those processes which are en-
acted in the foreconscious, and dispense with the attention cathexis
which is connected with consciousness.

MOTOR ASPECTS OF ATTENTIVE CONSCIOUSNESS

Closely related to attention, perhaps its outward manifestation, is
the phenomenon of set. Set is a condition of the individual which

1 K. Dunlap, A System of Psychology, New York: Scribncr's, 1912, 293.

2 S. Freud, The Basic Writings of Sigmund Freud, ed. A. A. Brill, New York: Random
House, 1938 (Wit and Its Relation to the Unconscious), 791. By permission of Random
House, Inc.

159

160 INATTENTIVE UNCONSCIOUSNESS

results in the facilitation of a certain activity. It is abundantly illus-
trated in everyday life. It is seen in the dog, trained not to touch
food without his master's permission, that stands gazing intently
at the food, tense and often quivering, keyed to react only to his
master's voice and the food. That it is difficult to distract by pe-
ripheral stimulation an animal so set is objective proof of the inhibi-
tion of extraneous parts of the environment not related to the focus
of the set.

Certain muscular or motor concomitants characteristically accom-
pany attention and constitute the objective criteria of attention
which are often called set. Pillsbury has listed them, as follows: 3

(a) Adjusting the sense organs in order best to receive the stimu-
lus. Examples of this are fixing the gaze on a speaker and turning
the head to locate a sound.

() Contractions of muscles of the legs and trunk which have
been found to help in perceiving similar stimulation in the past. A
case of this is the tendency of a football crowd to lean toward the
goal line which their team is trying to cross.

(c) Diffuse contractions of muscles throughout the body which
will not aid in the reception of stimulation. Tuttle has proved ex-
perimentally, 4 for instance, that the knee-jerk is greater than normal
during periods of attention to problem solving.

(d) Alterations in respiratory and circulatory processes. These
changes vary with the type of stimulus which causes the attentive
reaction. The pattern of action of a startled person has typical circu-
latory and respiratory characteristics, and the common phrase
"breathless attention" recognizes another sort of respiratory con-
comitant.

In these motor concomitants has been found a basis for motor
theories of attention, which have much in common with the motor
theories of consciousness discussed in Chapter IV. We have seen
that one sense of unconscious is UNATTENDING, and attention has
often been equated with consciousness.

3 W. B. Pillsbury, Attention, New York: Macmillan, 1908, 25.

4 W. W. Tuttle, The effect of attention or mental activity on the patellar tendon reflex,
/. Exper. PsychoL, 7, 1924, 401-19.

MOTOR ASPECTS OF ATTENTIVE CONSCIOUSNESS 161

Turtle's research mentioned above constitutes an experimental
evidence that motor activity is closely related to attentive conscious-
ness, and so does a research of Freeman's. 5 He arranged a mecha-
nism of levers and optical systems which made sensitive records of
the motions of important muscles of the legs and arms. The results
showed that these muscles of the subject were under increased ten-
sion when his attention was set to receive sounds or electric shocks,
or when he performed mental arithmetic. This tension was present
even in muscles not directly employed in any of the operations.
Weber experimentally confirmed the commonly recognized fact
that during attention there are such diffuse muscular tensions as
wrinkling the brow and clenching the teeth. Weber's subjects
showed these reactions after achieving, despite strong distraction,
tasks requiring undivided attention.

Long before this research was done, in the Victorian era of taffeta
petticoats, many an experienced speaker could determine how much
he was interesting his audience by listening to the rustling caused
by many slight motions. If the attention of his audience was not
sufficiently intense, many motions would not be inhibited; but if his
auditors were spellbound, there would be complete silence.

While it is difficult not to hold the belief that muscular tenseness
facilitates attentive consciousness, it is hard to set up a situation that
will conclusively prove it. There is no doubt that tenseness accom-
panies mental activity 7 and that relaxation occurs concomitantly
with diminished thought processes. 8 Which is cause and which
effect, however, is hard to determine. One sort of approach to the
question was followed by Bills, who had subjects squeeze in both
hands dynamometers measuring the strength of their grips at the
same time as they memorized, added, or read disconnected letters

5 G. L. Freeman, The spread of ncuro-muscular activity during mental work, /. Gen.
PsychoL, 5, 1931, 479-94-

6 H. Weber, Untcrsuchungen iiber die Ablenkung dcr Aufmerksamkeit, Arch. /. ges.
PsychoL, 71, 1929, 185-260.

7 Cf-, e.g., G. L. Freeman, Changes in tonus during completed and interrupted mental
work, /. Gen. PsychoL, 4, 1930, 309-34.

8 E. Jacobson, Progressive Relaxation, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1929, 164-89.
9 A. G. Bills, The influence of muscular tension on the efficiency of mental work, Amer.
J. Psychol., 38, 1927, 227-51.

162 INATTENTIVE UNCONSCIOUSNESS

as rapidly as possible. These tasks were done better under these con-
ditions than when the hands were relaxed. Other workers 10 have
been unable to corroborate Bills' finding that mental work under
muscular tension is consistently better than under relaxation. The
difficulty is that each person may well have an optimum muscular
tension which he habitually maintains, and that deviation in either
direction from the optimum would dimmish his efficiency.

It is still to be demonstrated whether or not muscular activity
increases attention. In some way, however, there must be a relation-
ship between motor and attentive processes. There are at present no
certainties about this relationship, but only pregnant hints like the
following: (a) Clenching the fists increases the knee-jerk, (b) Atten-
tion to a task increases the knee-jerk, (c) Attention accompanies
muscular tenseness. It would seem to follow from these three facts
that attention is a sort of selective facilitation by a level of the cen-
tral nervous system of certain functions of the organism. Surely inhi-
bition of most extraneous stimuli and facilitation of the relevant
few constitute one of the major roles of the observable set which
usually accompanies attention. Beyond these vague statements
nothing with empirical foundation can be said at present about the
motor aspects of attentive consciousness.

THE TYPES OF ATTENTIVE CONSCIOUSNESS

Certain psychologists who accept as valid only objective evidence
insist that attention is merely the outwardly observable set, "the
degree of the sensorimotor adjustment of the organism with respect
to a particular stimulus." 11 They are unwilling to believe such ad-
justments are merely outward concomitants of a subjective state.
Johnson, for instance, has written 12 that he could see "no reason
why a description of attentive behavior, made in strictly objective

10 E. N. Zartman and H. Cason, The influence of an increase in muscular tension on
mental efficiency, /. Exper. Psychol., 17, 1934, 671-9; also H. Block, The influence of
muscular exertion upon mental performance, Arch, of Psychol., 29, 1936, No. 202.

11 H. M. Johnson, The definition and measurement of attention, Amcr. /. Psychol., 36,
1925, 60 1. By permission of the American Journal of Psychology.

id. t 606. By permission.

THE TYPES OF ATTENTIVE CONSCIOUSNESS 163

terms, need be accompanied by a discussion of clearness of content,
to complete the exposition of facts relative to the former topic."

One sort of argument that attention has no meaning except in
objective terms is illustrated by the following quotation from
Boring: 13

Attention is reportability. It is limited by the range of the or-
ganizations that underlie report. It is determined by whatever de-
termines these organized neural activities. It is ever changing with
the change of such organization under the physiological laws of rapid
growth and decay.

Whatever conscious content can be easily reported is focal and avail-
able to introspection. What cannot be reported at all is unconscious.

If what is reportable is conscious and what is not is unconscious
(INCOMMUNICABLE), then it is this objective criterion that distin-
guishes consciousness (ATTENDED) from unconsciousness (UNAT-
TENDED). This is not the only sense of consciousness whose presence
must be indicated by communication (usually verbal). All deter-
minations of limen depend upon communication. It is not the
"sheer reportability" but the meaning of the words of the report
that attests the presence of a specific sort of consciousness. The
passenger may be able to report the supraliminal sound of the bell
of the locomotive pulling out from the station, though at the same
time his attention may be directed entirely to the disappearing
figures of his friends. In such matters reliance must be put upon
the significance of the words used in introspection, and not merely
on the objective fact that a communication takes place.

Introspectively two types of attention have been differentiated,
attributive clearness (Klarheit) and cognitive clearness (Deutlich-
J(cit). All one's powers of attention (Klarheit} may be concentrated
upon the perception of a stimulus which, because it is vague or
complex or only rapidly viewed, is not comprehended and so lacks
cognitive clearness (Peutlich\eii). It is a common experience for
English pilots to attend with all their capacity through a blanketing

13 E. G. Boring, The Physical Dimensions of Consciousness, New York: Century, 200.
By permission of the author and of D. Appleton-Century Company.

164 INATTENTIVE UNCONSCIOUSNESS

fog to dim beams from a lighthouse so shrouded that the light may
be seen only intermittently. Titchener first recognized that: 14 "A
process may be traversing the very centre of consciousness, and
therefore from the point of view of a psychology of attention may
be maximally clear: yet it may be so weak, so brief, so instable, that
its whole character is vague and indefinite."

A lengthy battle has been waged over the question of whether
Titchener and his followers were correct when they differentiated
the two kinds of attention, Klarheit and Deutlich\eit. The problem
arises again later in this chapter in the discussion of levels of atten-
tion, but it can be said here that the majority of psychologists today
interpret the evidence to show that there is subjectively only one
sort of attention.

THE ECONOMY OF ATTENTIVE CONSCIOUSNESS

To anyone interested in unconsciousness (UNATTENDED), two
major facts are of outstanding importance beyond all the others that
are known: (a) attention may be directed toward more than one
thing, but its range is limited; and (b) attention shifts. If the jury
is attending to the attire of the pretty young woman on the witness
stand, it is safe to presume that they are not carefully analyzing
her testimony. Apparently if one thing is to be done most effectively,
others must be pushed temporarily toward the margin of conscious-
ness. Phenomena occur unconsciously (UNATTENDED) because of this
principle of economy of the organism the greatest vigilance is at
one level of the nervous system, the attention on one thing, and
whatever other acts occur are relatively or completely automatic.
We all have an unconscious (UNATTENDED; NOT INVOLVING INSIGHT;
UNREMEMBERED suppressed or repressed; UNLEARNED; INCOMMUNI-
CABLE; IGNORED; PSYCHOANALYTIC MEANING) selective mechanism, our
able receptionist meeting all visitors; turning away some; allow-
ing some to wait; permitting a few to enter one at a time in all
this subservient to her employer's desires.

14 E. B. Titchener, Lectures on the Experimental Psychology of the Thought-Processes,
New York: Macmillan, 1926, 17. By permission of The Macmillan Company, publishers.

THE LIMITED RANGE OF ATTENTIVE CONSCIOUSNESS 165

THE LIMITED RANGE OF ATTENTIVE CONSCIOUSNESS

The original experiments measuring the range of attention dealt
with thresholds of sensory apprehension rather than true attention.
Hamilton in the last century found, 15 for instance, that if one esti-
mates at a glance the number of several marbles thrown on the
floor, no more than six or seven can be consistently counted correctly
after one rapid viewing. He thought that the largest number that
can be called correctly is the span of attention. It is now gen-
erally recognized that this is the span of visual apprehension of
number and has no more relation to attention than has any other
sensory act.

Glanville and Dallenbach have tried more recently 10 to find out,
not how many objects may be visually apprehended at once, but
how many may have attentive clearness at one time. They showed
to their subjects in a short-exposure apparatus various numbers of
geometric figures, and found that for one subject attentive clarity
was affected by the number of figures exposed, but for the two
other subjects there was no relation between the number of figures
and whether they were all attentively clear. It was therefore con-
cluded that the number of objects is not what compels certain parts
of an observed field to be attentively more clear than others. These
authors decided on the basis of this work that attentive conscious-
ness is always a unified whole, and in this sense its range is always
"one."

This conclusion of the singleness of attention forces one to remem-
ber that it is nevertheless true that an individual frequently, and in
fact always, is doing more than one thing at a time. Besides the
various continual operations of his other physiological systems like
the gastrointestinal tract and the endocrine glands, his sense recep-
tors are all the time sending afferent impulses to the central nervous
system and his "voluntary" muscles are forever active. He may drive

15 W. Hamilton, Lectures on Metaphysics and Logic, Edinburgh: Blackwood, 1859,
I, 254.

16 A. D. Glanville and K. M. Dallenbach, The range of attention, Amcr. /. Psychol.,
41, 1929, 207-36.

166 INATTENTIVE UNCONSCIOUSNESS

a car, watch the traffic signals, listen to the car radio, and talk, all
simultaneously.

Is the attention devoted to all such simultaneous acts, or is it not ?
Glanville and Dallenbach's conclusion about the unity of attention
might be correct even though man is so often a three-ring circus.
Attention might shift rapidly from act to act as the juggler's gaze
shifts from ball to ball; or one act might be attended to and the
others, because of long practice, might proceed unattended; or all
acts might be united into a single integrated performance.

Numerous researches have been devoted to determining whether
or not more than one activity can be attended to at once. Experi-
mentation on simultaneous performances is to be found at least as
early as 1887. Paulhan found 17 that he could write down a poem
and recite one at the same time, but that a difficult operation was
retarded by even the automatic recitation of a familiar poem at the
same time. Binet attempted 18 to have subjects do simple motor tasks
pressing rubber bulbs and continue reading aloud, reciting
aloud, or doing mental arithmetic at the same time. He found that
unless both problems were easy, or one was "automatic," there
was interference, and both were disturbed. Also he had subjects
squeeze a bulb in rhythm twice with the left hand to every five
times with the right. Usually one of the hands drew the other into
its rhythm, in which case there would be only a single task. Jastrow
and Cairnes found 19 that simple mental activities like adding or
reading have only slight if any mutual interference with simple
motor tasks, but that there is greater interference in more complex
tasks. For one subject, tapping rapidly hastened mental activities
by a sort of facilitation.

Later experimentations improved upon these preceding investiga-
tions because they practically succeeded in keeping the subjects'
attention from wandering and also prevented one of the tasks from

17 F. Paulhan, La simultancitc dcs actcs psychiques, Rev. Scient., 39, 1887, 684-9.

18 A. Binet, La concurrence dcs etats psychologiques, Rev. Phdosophiqtie, 29, 1890,

138-55.

19 J. Jastrow and W. B. Cairnes, The interference of mental processes, Amer. J. Psychol.,
4, 1891, 219-23. Cf. also R. Vogt, Ueber Ablcnkbarkeit und Gewohnungsfahigkeit,
Psychol. Arbeit. (Kraeplin), 3, 1901, 62-201.

THE LIMITED RANGE OF ATTENTIVE CONSCIOUSNESS 167

becoming automatic by presenting in every trial two novel, short,
and disparate tasks simultaneously. This procedure would obviate
the criticism which could be made of previous experimentations,
that two tasks could be performed together because one of them
had left the focus of attention and become automatic. All these
later researches were done by a group of German workers who
attacked the problem at about the same time. Schulze, employing
the new procedure, discovered 20 that in ninety per cent of all cases
two simple intellectual tasks could be performed at the same time.
Eliasberg found in work of the same sort" 1 that two tasks could
be carried on simultaneously in 42.7 per cent of his cases. Mager
reported 1 ' 2 that in only eleven per cent of the cases could a correct
simultaneous appreciation of two problems be obtained. He believed
that neither his work nor Schulze's proved that two disparate de-
liberative judgments could be performed as a single act of attention,
though he admitted that the natures of both tasks could sometimes
be perceived concurrently and then solved separately afterward.

Pauli also has performed experiments on this problem. In one of
these 23 pressures were applied to a finger on each hand and the sub-
ject was to say which pressure was stronger. At the same time he
had to do some such visual task as telling how many geometrical
figures, from three to six, were rapidly exposed before him. Either
task alone was nearly always correctly performed, but when pre-
sented simultaneously one or both were incorrect in nearly ninety
per cent of the trials. From this it may be concluded that simul-
taneous performance of two attended acts rarely occurs. In 1931
Pauli reported his attempt 24 to show the mutual exclusivcness of
conscious (ATTENDED) processes by determining the difference in

20 Cf. N. Ach, Zur Fragc clcr Enge dcs Bcwusstscins, Arch. f. ges. Fsychol., 74, 1930,
261-74.

21 W. Eliasberg, Ubcr Schwicngkcit und Ausschliesshchkcit im Scchschcn, Arch. f. ges.
Psychol., 74, 1930, 173-200.

22 A. Magcr, Zur Fragc dcr Engc dcs Bcwusstscins, Arch. /. ges. Psychol., 74, 1930,

163-72.

23 R. Pauli, Dcr Umfang und die Enge dcs Bcwusstscins, Ztschr. f. Biol., 81, 1924,
93-H2.

24 R. Pauli, Uber den cxpcrimcntellen Nachweis der Enge dcs Bewusstsems, Ztschr. /.
Biol., 92, 1931, 37-44-

168 INATTENTIVE UNCONSCIOUSNESS

reaction times between when they are presented singly and when
they occur simultaneously. The tactual task was to compare the
intensities of two touch sensations presented at the same time; the
visual task was principally to detect errors in printed words. The
average tactual reaction time under certain conditions was 0.7 sec-
ond; the visual was 1.4 seconds. When both tasks were presented
together, however, the average reaction time was 2.5 seconds. This
2.5 seconds he thought was the sum of 0.7 for the tactual, plus 1.4
for the visual, plus 0.4 the time required for shifting the attention.
All this laboratory work seems to sum up to the conclusion that
it is sometimes possible for more than one distinct activity to be in
the focus of attention at once. Under such circumstances there can
be more than one center of vigilance at a time. It is impossible to
escape the conclusion, however, that usually attention is directed
toward only one thing at a time, and that it never can be focused
on more than a few things. It is the economy of the organism to
automatize all except one or at most a few of simultaneous acts, for
attention cannot be spread thin over many. If the trombone is solo-
ing in the one-man band, it is fairly certain that the violin and
drums are being played unconsciously (UNATTENDED). Because the
personalities of even the least musical of us are much like one-man
bands, these findings should be of interest to clinicians.

THE EFFECT OF ATTENTIVE CONSCIOUSNESS IN
IMPROVING EFFICIENCY

No research has yet shown that attention improves trombone
playing, but there is good reason to believe that it may, for it im-
proves other responses.

(a) Grassi studied 25 the effect of concentrated and dispersed
attention upon speed of reaction. When a part of the body which
the subject was expecting to be stimulated was touched, the response
was more rapid than when his expectation was directed toward two
points, and one of them was touched. This second reaction time,

25 1. Grassi, Einfachc Rcaktionszeit und Emstellung der Aufmerksamkeit, Ztschr. /.
Psychol., 60, 1911, 46-72.

THE EFFECT OF ATTENTION ON EFFICIENCY 169

moreover, was less than when the contact occurred on a part of the
body where it was not expected, or when it took the subject by sur-
prise. Stone, in corroboration, found 26 that, with expectation di-
rected toward hearing a sound, a tactual stimulus is perceived about
0.05 second later than if the expectation is directed toward a touch.
Boring said 27 that this shows an excitation can wait fifty milli-
seconds in a "vestibule of consciousness" until attention favors it,
and Grassi stated 28 that in her experiment the reactions to stimula-
tion of the less-prepared spots were slower because time is required
to adjust the direction of attention to a new region.

(b) Attention not only speeds up response, but it also improves
discrimination. Newhall 29 depended upon various types of prepara-
tions to determine the subject's expectancy of and hence attention to
a weak tactual stimulus. The attention was least when the stimula-
tion occurred without warning; it was stronger when the prepara-
tory signal was given at a definite interval before the stimulus was
presented; it was strongest when the subject could watch a moving
pointer approach a point, knowing that when it reached it the stimu-
lus would be given. In half of the trials stimulation occurred and in
half it did not. The order was random. The subject reported
whether or not a stimulus had been given. The findings were that
the greater the attention, the better the discrimination between
presence and absence of stimuli. This finding was also shown,
though less certainly, to be true for visual as well as tactual stimu-
lation.

Numerous efforts have been made to determine whether atten-
tion improves sensory acuity by measuring discrimination of stimuli
with and without distraction. The results have been openly con-"
flicting, and the most probable reason for this is that, though so-
called distractors may decrease the degree of attention, they may
also act as stimulators and increase it. Mitchell, for example,

26 S. Stone, Prior entry in the auditory-tactual complication, Amer. J. Psychol., 37, 1926,

284-7.

27 E. G. Boring, op. cit., 142.

28 I. Grassi, op. cit., 72.

29 S. M. Newhall, Effects of attention on the intensity of cutaneous pressure and on
visual brightness, Arch, of Psychol., 9, 1923, No. 61.

170 INATTENTIVE UNCONSCIOUSNESS

found 30 that distraction improves discrimination; Travis 31 confirmed
Mitchell's findings. Though both these last researches are vitiated
by their assumption that extraneous stimuli must distract and may
not stimulate, Newhall's work is not subject to that criticism.

The effect of attention upon the visual limen has also been
studied. Wirth believed 82 that he demonstrated that the limen of
recognizable change of visual brightness is lower in a region of the
visual field that is attended to than in one that is not. As Geissler
showed/ 3 this demonstration was not statistically convincing.
Wirth's procedure was a valuable method, however, and more re-
cent workers, Guratzsch 3 * and Bretschneider, 3 " using his general
technique, have proved his original thesis more satisfactorily.

Guratzsch's procedure illustrates the sort of technique employed
earlier by Wirth and later by Bretschneider. His subjects were
required to fixate a spot on the center of a perimeter with both eyes.
Clearness was measured at various points in the field by determin-
ing the visual threshold at these points. This procedure was carried
out when attention was over the whole field, when it was on the
center of the field, and when it was directed on a side point. (The
attention changed, but the eyes did not move from the central fixa-
tion point.) The best average clearness was found when attention
was distributed over the whole field. If attention was concentrated
on a single point anywhere in the field, clearness was greatest there
and diminished as a function of the distance from that point. This
fact shows that the clearness was a function of attention and not of
visual acuity, for visual acuity diminishes toward the periphery of
the visual field and the maximum acuity cannot move from point

30 D. Mitchell, The influence of distractions on the formation of judgments in lifted
weight experiments, Psyc/iol. Monog., 17, 1914, No. 74.

31 L. E. Travis, Changes in auditory acuity during the performance of certain mental
tasks, Amer. J. PsychoL, 37, 1926, 139-42.

32 W. Wirth, Die Klarheitsgraclc dcr Regioncn dcs Sehfeldes bei vcrschiedenen Ver-
tcilungen dcr Aufmerksamkcit, PsychoL Studien, 2, 1907, 30-88.

33 L. R. Geissler, A critique of Professor Wirth's methods of measurement of attention,
Amer. /. PsychoL, 20, 1909, 120-30.

34 W. Guratzsch, Das Klarhcitsrelief der Gcsichtsempfindungcn unter dem Einfluss der
willkurhchcn Aufmcrksamkcit, Arch. f. ges. PsychoL, 70, 1929, 257-310.

35 E. Bretschneider, Untersclnedschwellcn im Sehfeld unter dcm Einfluss der willt(urlichen
Au)merf(saml(eit, Bielefeld: Beyer und Hausknccht, 1935.

THE EFFECT OF ATTENTION ON EFFICIENCY 171

to point unless the eyes move. These results thus show that attention
improves discrimination. They also show that attention fades off
imperceptibly, and that there are no watertight compartments
separating consciousness (ATTENDED) from unconsciousness (UN-
ATTENDED) any more than there are in the other senses of these
words which are analyzed in preceding chapters.

(r) Ordahl experimented 150 with the effect of attention in develop-
ing an unconscious (INCOMMUNICABLE) set. She chose to work with
the so-called motor set the well-known fact that in judging
weights, if a heavy weight is lifted by the hand first, a lighter weight
lifted next seems lighter than it really is. Ordahl had her subjects
lift a weight A with the right hand, and then determine what
weight, 5, when lifted with the left hand, was subjectively equal to
A. Then a weight C, twice as heavy as fi, was lifted several times
with the left hand. After this /?, raised by the left hand, was com-
pared with A, lifted by the right. Ordahl found that the "motor
set" in the left hand made the subjects underestimate the weight
of B. She noted further that, if the subjects attended closely to lift-
ing weight A, the motor set was greater than if their attentions
were distracted by reading to them as they lifted the weight. This
last finding showed that attention aids the development of even
such an unconscious (INCOMMUNICABLE) motor set.

(d) It has been demonstrated by Rowe and Washburn 37 that
figures drawn with the left hand are better remembered by right-
handed people than figures drawn with the right. This fact has
been interpreted 38 as showing that the narrower attention required
for this unaccustomed act improves the memorizing.

Inattention to the starter's gun can lose a hundred-yard dash, and"
everyday experience shows that attentive consciousness can improve
many other responses. If some behaviorist says that consciousness
and unconsciousness (UNATTENDED) are useless concepts because

36 L. E. Ordahl, Consciousness in relation to learning, Amcr. J. Psychol., 22, 1911,
158-213.

37 L. Rowe and M. F. Washburn, The motor memory of the left hand, Amer. J.
Psychol., 19, 1908, 243.

d.; also L. E. Ordahl, op. cit., 175.

172 INATTENTIVE UNCONSCIOUSNESS

behavior is the same whether they are present or absent, it can be
replied that the above evidence shows that, when a person is uncon-
scious (UNATTENDING), his behavior is distinctly different from that
when he is on the qui vlve. He reacts less rapidly, he discriminates
less accurately, and he memorizes less well.

SHIFTS OF ATTENTION

The second major fact about attention is that it shifts. Most of
the traditional experimentation on this fact of fluctuation dealt with
phenomena of sensory apprehension rather than attention. In this
misconception the early research on the subject resembled the work
on range of attention. Urbantschitsch found, 39 for example, that the
faint ticking of a watch held at a distance disappeared and reap-
peared periodically, and this sensory phenomenon was often
thought to be a fluctuation of attention. As Woodworth has writ-
ten, 40 introspectively the fluctuation of a faint stimulus is different
from the shift of attention focus away from it: in the first case the
stimulus becomes entirely unconscious (UNSENSED), but in the sec-
ond it is still present in the margin (UNATTENDED). Attention can,
moreover, shift from a faint stimulus even though it remains in a
positive phase of fluctuation. A subject of Guilford's reported: 41

I noticed during the first part of the experiment when the stimulus
was present in the field, that I could direct my attention variously
without in any way affecting the stimulus. I directed my attention
to the biting-board, to the head-rest, to the light that seems to come
in from the left side of the room, which I never noticed before. In
spite of the fact that they seized my attention the stimulus per-
sisted. . . . After it has disappeared I can, on the contrary, attend
away from all those things and direct my whole efforts to the ex-
pecting and waiting for the stimulus, but to no avail.

True shifting of attention was studied in research directed by

89 V. Urbantschitsch, Ueber cine Eigenthumlichkeit der Schallcmpfmdungen geringstcr
Intensitat, Centtalbl. /. Med. Wissen., 13, 1875, 625-8.

40 R, S. Woodworth, Experimental Psychology, New York: Holt, 1938, 703.

41 J. P. Guilford, 'Fluctuations of attention* with weak visual stimuli, Amer. J. PsychoL,
38, 1927, 579. By permission of the American Journal of Psychology.

SHIFTS OF ATTENTION 173

Pillsbury, and carried on by Work and Billings 42 independently.
Billings's subjects had instructions to attend to one particular point
(say, in a picture), and to indicate by pressing a telegraph key
whenever their attention wandered from it. For several subjects in
many situations, it was found that the attention would focus on
one object or idea for about two seconds before shifting. The range
was from a small fraction of a second to more than ten seconds.
In commenting on this work Pillsbury said 43 that really the two-
second average should be halved, because every recorded shift of
attention represented really two actual shifts, one from the point
observed to the distracting point or idea, and the other to the recog-
nition of the distraction. Certain other factors might serve to decrease
the time values even further.

Other techniques of investigating shifts in attention have been
less satisfactory. It has been an assumption of some researches 44
that these shifts are the sole causes for the changes of efficiency
which occur in continuous tasks. This assumption is fallacious, for
the changes might be caused by many physiological variations, as
in oxygen content of the blood or adrenalin secretion. The fluctua-
tion of attention can, however, now be studied quantitatively by
Work's and Billings's method and the causes of it can be deter-
mined.

Some characteristics of a stimulus which are capable of making it
stand out against a background and attract attention to it are known.
A few are: intensity (a blinding flash of lightning); extensity (a
full-page advertisement) ; motion (the movement of a camouflaged
mud-colored toad); and change (the stopping of the clock's tick-
ing). Dallenbach has found other similar factors. 45 The experi-*"
mental evidence for all this is extensive. To illustrate Wilcocks
exposed 46 for short periods a number of series of letters, one letter

42 M. LeR. Billings, The duration of attention, Psychol. Rev., 21, 1914, 121-35.

43 W. B. Pillsbury, "Fluctuations of attention" and the refractory period, /. Philos.,
Psychol., and Set. Methods, 10, 1913, 182-3.

44 E.g., H. C. McComas, A measure of the attention, /. Exper. Psychol., 5, 1922, 1-18.

45 K. M. Dallenbach, Attributive vs. cognitive clearness, /. Exper. Psychol, 3, 1920,
183-230.

46 R. W. Wilcocks, The effect of an unexpected heterogeneity on attention, /. Gen.
Psychol., i, 1928, 266-319.,

174 INATTENTIVE UNCONSCIOUSNESS

in each series being of a different color. He found memory for the
colored letter much better than for the others and presumed it was
more attention-compelling. Again, he exposed a series of nonsense
syllables five times, but the sixth time he introduced a new syllable
in the series. This was much better remembered than the other
syllables. In a third experiment he found that moving letters had
a higher memory value than stationary ones. There were similar
studies of other factors influencing attention. It is interesting to note
in passing that Wilcocks used a memory criterion to test conscious-
ness in another sense (ATTENDED). He thus equated unconsciousness
(UNREMEMBERED) with unconsciousness (UNATTENDED).

Wilcocks concluded from his results that attention is compelled
by change, by novel or heterogeneous stimuli. This is a behavioral
as well as an introspective fact. The motor concomitants of attentive
consciousness the "what is it?" reflex usually appear after a
change in stimulation. In the next chapter it is shown that the rapid
appearance of these motor concomitants upon change of the en-
vironment is an objective indication that unconsciousness (NOT IN-
VOLVING INSIGHT) has shifted to consciousness.

DISTRACTABILITY AS A MEASURE OF DEGREE
OF ATTENTIVE CONSCIOUSNESS

Distraction causes shifts of attention, and the ease of distracta-
bility has become a common measure of the strength of attention.
Normal adults trying to concentrate can be distracted temporarily,
but usually are able after this initial lapse to attend for a long period
to a given task, heedless of external stimulation. An entertaining
research of Hovey's 47 illustrated these two facts. He gave one form
of the Army Alpha intelligence test to a number of college students,
and on the basis of their scores divided them into two matched
groups, A and B. Six weeks later Group A took another form of
the Army Alpha test under normal conditions, while Group B took

47 H. B. Hovey, Effects of general distraction on the higher thought processes, Amer. f.
Psychol t 40, 1928, 585-91.

DISTRACTABILITY AS A MEASURE OF ATTENTION 175

it under conditions of distraction. The following distractors were
used: seven electric bells of different tones in various parts of the
room, sounding intermittently; five buzzers; a spot-light sweeping
continually from side to side; a ninety-thousand-volt spark gap; a
blaring phonograph; two organ pipes; three whistles; a circular
metal saw struck at intervals; a photographer taking pictures of
the subjects; men marching on the floor above; and various assistants
entering the room noisily in unusual attire and carrying peculiar
pieces of apparatus or rolling nail kegs down the aisles. The average
results of the two groups were as follows: Group A, working under
normal conditions, 137.6; Group 5, working under distraction,
133.9; l ss > apparently due to distraction, 3.7. In this work higher
mental processes were thus demonstrated to be comparatively unaf-
fected by distraction.

The mechanism of making oneself relatively unconscious (UNDIS-
CRIMINATING) of the distracting stimulation has been investigated
by Morgan, 48 who measured the strength subjects put into each
stroke of a key in a task somewhat like typewriting, and at the
same time made a record of their breathing. These data were
gathered during periods of quiet and of distraction, and the essential
findings were: At the beginning of the distraction, there was some
slowing of the work; within a few minutes the subject regained his
former speed and continued to increase it; after the distraction was
stopped, a slower rate was resumed. Extra pressure was exerted on
the keys during distraction to overcome the noises. Articulation
referring to the task, as shown by changes in breathing, also
occurred during the noise to aid in overcoming it. Ford in similar
work 49 discovered that muscular tenseness increases with the onset-
of distraction, but he did not believe that the strength of motor
activity is an index of the degree of mental activity at the moment.
He also found indications of articulation during distraction, as did
Morgan. Insofar as both of these experiments indicate that increased
muscular contractions accompany the overcoming of distraction,

48 J. J. B. Morgan, The overcoming of distraction and other resistances, Arch, of Psychol.,
1916, No. 35.
40 A. Ford, Attention-automatization, Amer. J. Psychol., 41, 1929, 1-32.

176 INATTENTIVE UNCONSCIOUSNESS

they corroborate any motor theory of consciousness (ATTENTIVE).
Ford had some doubts, however, whether his work should be inter-
preted as such a corroboration.

Geissler found 50 that introspective reports of the degree of atten-
tion on the basis of an arbitrary subjective scale are reliable indices
of the degree of attention as shown by the rate of performing tasks
under distracting conditions, like adding or drawing lines through
circles. An attempt was made to keep constant all factors which
might alter this rate, except attention. Geissler found this introspec-
tive measure better than any measure of degree of distraction or of
muscular tenseness. The degree of distraction was shown to bear
no relation to the degree of attention. Similar research by Dallen-
bach 51 gave similar results. He worked with tasks involving judg-
ments about auditory and tactual stimuli during various sorts of
distraction and during the performance of secondary tasks. He
found that time of reaction in making sensory judgments was under
his conditions a good measure of degree of attention.

LEVELS OF ATTENTIVE CONSCIOUSNESS

This chapter begins with a controversial statement, that there is
a continuum of gradations between focus and margin of attention.
It was made on the basis of evidence to be reviewed now, but it is
by no means incontestable, and it has been hotly disputed by those
who hold that there are only two levels of attention. Introspectionists
who have two-level theories seem to believe in what are really three
levels clear attention, vague attention, and unconsciousness (UN-
ATTENDED).

It was noted previously (pp. 20 and 136) that Freudian theory has
three such strata consciousness, preconsciousness, and unconscious-
ness (PSYCHOANALYTIC MEANING). Freud's main distinction of levels
is between unconsciousness (PSYCHOANALYTIC MEANING), whose con-
tents can normally never become conscious, and preconsciousness,

60 L. R. Geissler, The measurement of attention, Amer. /. Psychol., 20, 1909, 473-529.

51 K. M. Dallenbach, The measurement of attention, Amer. /. Psychol., 24, 1913, 465-
507; also K. M. Dallenbach, The measurement of attention in the field of cutaneous sensa-
tion, Amer. /. Psychol., 27, 1916, 443-60.

LEVELS OF ATTENTIVE CONSCIOUSNESS 177

whose contents may become conscious. The difference between pre-
consciousness and consciousness did not seem so great to him, for
thoughts can flow easily from one to the other. Though he made no
explicit statement of his position, it is more probable that he be-
lieved that one degree of attention fades into another than that there
are only two levels. The Gestalt psychologists, however, are more
likely to favor two distinct strata, which they call figure and ground,
besides the third level of unconsciousness (UNAVAILABLE TO AWARE-
NESS). They are strongly opposed to referring to the stratification
as levels of attention, but have sometimes come close to equating
the figure and ground with the focus and periphery of attention. 52

If strictly objective psychologists who depreciate introspection
choose to have a theory of attention, it must logically be a two-level
theory. For them there can be no third level, for their criterion of
whether a stimulus is attended to is whether it is discriminated. If
the subject discriminates that red light from the other green lights,
he attends to it. When objective behavior is the criterion, conscious-
ness (ATTENDED) is the same as consciousness (DISCRIMINATING),
and unconsciousness (UNATTENDED) equals unconsciousness (UNDIS-
CRIMINATING). There are really only these two levels, though Bor-
ing 53 has suggested that behaviorally clearness and vagueness of
attention might be distinguished by whether the report of the dis-
crimination comes quickly and with assurance or slowly and with
doubt. The slowness of report of a vaguely attended stimulus would
be accounted for by the time necessary to shift attention to it. It
was, however, through an introspective experiment that it was
originally learned that time is required for such a shift, 54 and certainly
the "low assurance" is an introspective report. It is thus still true that,
by mere observation of behavior, vagueness and clarity of attention
are not distinguishable.

Whether there are only two levels of attention or whether atten-
tion fades imperceptibly from focus to margin must be settled on a

52 E.g., K. KofTka, Perception: an introduction to the Gcstalt-Theoric, PsychoL Bull.,
19, 1922, 561.

53 E, G. Boring, op. tit., 200.

54 Cf. e.g., M. LeR. Billings, loc. cit., which work is discussed on p. 173.

178 INATTENTIVE UNCONSCIOUSNESS

frankly introspective basis. Two experiments were performed by
Dallenbach, one in collaboration with Gill, 55 in which geometrical
figures were rapidly exposed before subjects who were to report on
the number of levels of attributive clearness (Klarheii) of their per-
ceptions. With one exception, none reported more than two clarity
and vagueness. Dallenbach believed the data contained grounds for
discounting this exception. This is the experimental basis adduced
by Dallenbach for the two-level theory.

In later work Wever 56 exposed rapidly before his subjects equivo-
cal stimuli. These stimuli were so designed, and the directions before
their presentation were so given, that sometimes one half of the field
would appear to be the background and the other half would stand
out against it, and in other trials these roles would be reversed. The
subjects were asked to give an absolute judgment on a nine-point
scale of the attributive clearness (Klarheii) of the two parts of the
design. These subjects showed by their introspections that they per-
ceived several levels of attentive clarity. These introspections were
directly in conflict with the reports of Dallenbach's subjects in his
research mentioned in the previous paragraph. In reply to Wever's
experimental contradiction of his work, Dallenbach wrote 57 that
he did not consider Wever's technique adequate to deal with the
problem and further that he was inclined to accept the reports of
his own subjects. There the controversy rested.

The work of Wirth, Guratzsch, and Bretschneider discussed previ-
ously (pp. 170-171) has broken this deadlock, and now it appears cer-
tain that there are many degrees of attentive clarity that shade off
gradually from focus to margin of any given perception.

AUTOMATIC STATES OF UNATTENDED BEHAVIOR

The automatization of acts which have often been repeated or
which have no great import to the individual at the moment is fre-

55 K. M. Dallenbach, Attributive vs. cognitive clearness, he. cit.; also N. F. Gill and
K. M. Dallenbach, A preliminary study of the range of attention, Amcr. f. Psychol., 37,
1926, 247-56.

50 E. G. Wever, Attention and clearness in the perception of figure and ground, Amcr. ].
Psychol., 40, 1928, 51-74.

AUTOMATIC STATES OF UNATTENDED BEHAVIOR 179

quently illustrated in everyday life. There was, for example, the
absent-minded professor who, before leaving his home to go out to
dinner, went to his room to change his tie. When he did not come
downstairs in twenty minutes, his wife went to his room and found
him in his pajamas in bed. His mind on higher things, he had inat-
tentively removed his tie and this act had set off the chain of be-
havior that landed him in bed. Another illustration of conscious
(DISCRIMINATING) behavior which was entirely unconscious (UNAT-
TENDED) is found in Case VIII of Chapter II, the girl who took the
medicine and tomato juice by mistake.

Similar phenomena have interested experimental psychologists.
Ach spoke 58 of the determining tendency which develops when a task
is set. Under these circumstances certain responses to a stimulus are
reinforced and others inhibited. Then, when the stimulation finally
occurs, the act happens automatically and often the performer of it
is unconscious (UNABLE TO COMMUNICATE) of it. When a typist, for
example, wishes to make a quotation mark, she hits the number 2,
but makes a quotation mark because, though she could not report
it, she had a determining tendency to hit the shift key at the same
time.

It has been experimentally proved that unconscious (UNATTENDED)
stimuli can modify a person's behavior. Coover 59 showed subjects
for 0.085 second in a rapid-exposure apparatus cards, each of which
had a letter in the lower right-hand corner and a digit in the upper
left-hand corner. The subjects were required to report what the
letter was and then to name a digit "at random." They had no
knowledge of the digit in the upper right-hand corner, which was
in peripheral vision. The digit which had been exposed with the
letter, but of which the subjects were unconscious (UNATTENDING),
was named much more frequently than could be accounted for by
chance.

In somewhat similar work Collier 60 has recently exposed rapidly

58 N. Ach, Uber die Willcnstatigfyit und das Den^en, Gottmgen: Vandenhoeck and
Ruprecht, 1905.

09 J. E. Coover, Experiments in Psychical Research at Leland Stanford Junior University,
Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1917 (not viewed).

60 R. M. Collier, An experimental study of the effects of subliminal stimuli, PsychoL
Monog., 52, 1940, No. 236.

180 INATTENTIVE UNCONSCIOUSNESS

subliminal geometric figures in peripheral vision, of which his sub-
jects were unconscious (SUBLIMINAL STIMULI AFFECTING ORGANISM
and UNATTENDING). He discovered that under certain circumstances
the subjects would in "random" guessing choose the figure exposed
in peripheral vision more often than could be accounted for by
chance.

Automatic, unconscious (UNATTENDED) activities are carried out
in certain unusual or abnormal states. One illustration of this is auto-
matic writing. "Doodling" with pencil and paper while telephoning
is a common form of such writing. The act may be entirely unat-
tended and the finished product surprising to the one who made it.
Miihl reported 01 an intensive investigation of automatic writing of
more than one hundred and fifty individuals, some psychopathic
and some normal. She insisted that all people can learn to do auto-
matic writing. Her usual procedure was as follows. The subject did
not look at the page on which the writing was occurring, but kines-
thetic and auditory stimuli from the recording pencil reached him.
At the same time he would read aloud, and, according to the intro-
spections, would rarely pay attention to what was being written.
Nevertheless certain subjects could correctly reply by this automatic
writing to questions of whose answers they were usually uncon-
scious (UNATTENDING, UNREMEMBERING, UNABLE TO COMMUNICATE, or
PSYCHOANALYTIC MEANING). In several cases forgotten childhood
events were recovered this way.

Erickson made 02 a suggestive investigation of automatic writing
in two subjects. He showed that words can have a double meaning
to a person, one conscious (ATTENDED and COMMUNICABLE) and a
second unconscious (UNATTENDED and INCOMMUNICABLE), which the
person will admit he recognizes only through the medium of auto-
matic writing. One of Erickson's subjects, for instance, wrote the
number thirty in such a way that it also looked like thirty-eight.
She would admit orally only that it read thirty, but by automatic

61 A. M. Miihl, Automatic Writing, Dresden: SteinkopfT, 1930.

62 M. H. Erickson, The experimental demonstration of unconscious mentation by auto-
matic writing, Psychoanalyt. Quart. , 6, 1937, 513-29.

CONCLUSIONS 181

writing she said that she had purposely concealed thirty-eight in the
writing. Immediately after this revelation she admitted orally that
the word could be read thirty-eight also.

For many years experimental attempts have been made to develop
automatic states. An early example of such efforts was the research
of Solomons and Gertrude Stein, the writer. 63 With extensive prac-
tice they were able to develop the ability to do such things as read
long passages aloud unconsciously (UNATTENDING) while carrying
on some entirely separate endeavor at the same time. This same
ability is possessed in high degree by many experienced knitters.

This phenomenon approaches the state of dissociation, the ex-
istence of two separate thought systems in the same person at the
same time. When one system is conscious (ATTENDED), the other is
not. Members of the French school believe 64 that many psycho-
logical abnormalities can be explained on the basis of this dissocia-
tion of attention. Among these they place alternating amnesias
(like Irene, Case XIII of Chapter II, p. 63) or "multiple per-
sonalities" (like Miss Beauchamp, Case XIV of Chapter II, pp. 64-
65). Study of these cases reveals, however, that any inattention or
automatization in them is a less important symptom than uncon-
sciousness (UNREMEMBERED), and that what is really essential about
the cases is the motivation for the symptoms. To consider many
kinds of mental diseases to be pathologies of attention is superficial
the inattention or lack of cognitive clearness is a symptom and
not a disease.

CONCLUSIONS

These, then, are the chief facts of unconsciousness (UNATTENDED}.
Attention generally has recognizable motor components which dis-
appear during inattentiveness. Attention is limited in range and its
focus can shift from point to point, often to a place in the environ-

63 L. M. Solomons and G. Stein, Normal motor automatism, Psychol. Rev., 3, 1896, 492-
512. Cf. also G. Stem, Cultivated motor automatism, Psychol. Rev., 5, 1898, 295-306; and
L. M. Solomons, Automatic reactions, Psychol. Rev., 6, 1899, 376-94.

04 E.g., J.-P. Nayrac, Physiologic et psychologic de I' attention, Paris: Alcan, 1906,
144-78.

182 INATTENTIVE UNCONSCIOUSNESS

ment where change is occurring: this all in accord with the princi-
ple of economy of the organism, for a high grade of vigilance rarely
attends more than one process at a time. We know attention can
improve many sorts of responses. We have good evidence that con-
sciousness (ATTENDED) shades gradually into automatized uncon-
sciousness (UNATTENDED), and that complicated processes may be
carried on in either state. The automatized patterns of behavior,
however, are characteristically stereotyped and generally are acts
which the individual has practiced many times. Under certain condi-
tions, however, he may react adequately to novel stimuli of which
he is unconscious (UNATTENDING).

CHAPTER VIII
INSIGHTLESS UNCONSCIOUSNESS

Once there were three princes of Serendip (Ceylon). Legend
relates that they frequently sallied forth on important quests. Be-
cause of their sagacity and perseverance, they always returned with
something of great significance and value, but not the object for
which they thought they were searching when they set out. Horace
Walpole condensed this tale's portrayal of a specific characteristic
of human nature into the coined word serendipity, by which he
meant the capacity of looking for one thing and finding another, of
equal or greater value. This power of creative thinking is generally
unconscious (UNATTENDED, INCOMMUNICABLE, or NOT INVOLVING IN-
SIGHT). It is, as Dummer wrote, 1 "a 'chewing of the mental cud,' a
synthetic process or integrative action from which spring the mathe-
matical imagination, the hypothesis of the scientist, the inspiration
of the poet and the intuition of the every-day man."

This ability Pareto considered 2 one aspect of the "instinct for com-
binations" an instinct, because it is a native endowment. The ca-
pacity, of course, varies from man to man; but it can be improved
by practice. It is the ability to integrate factors not before combined
to produce a new result which will satisfy a need of the individual.
Such results usually are achieved suddenly and, so far as introspec-
tion goes, inexplicably.

ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE FUNCTIONING OF
INSIGHTLESS PROCESSES

Biography and autobiography abound with anecdotes concerning
the operation of unconscious (NOT INVOLVING INSIGHT) creative

1 E. S. Dummer, in C. M. Child et aL, The Unconscious: A Symposium, New York:
Knopf, 1929, i. By permission of F. S. Crofts and Company.

2 V. Pareto, The Mind and Society, cd. A. Livingston, New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1935,
II, 519-96.

183

184 INSIGHTLESS UNCONSCIOUSNESS

processes. Poincare's careful recounting of how his mathematical
discoveries came to him is an excellent example; it is Case IX in
Chapter II (pp. 55-56). Eckermann, in Gesprdche mit Goethe? told
how the great man related that his verses came to him suddenly
and inexplicably without previous conscious consideration. Scrip-
ture wrote 4 of a similar event in his own experience. He was trans-
lating a poem from German into English. In his first draft, correctly
literal, carefully worded (as he said, "consciously"), the work was
poorly done. When, however, he gave up criticizing it carefully,
and let the words come freely (as he said, "unconsciously"), the
results were much better.

The remarkable literary detective work of Lowes (illustrated in
Case X of Chapter II, pp. 57-59), in which he ferreted out from many
sources the origins of the thoughts, the figures of speech, and even
the very words of Coleridge's best-known poems, throws light upon
the mechanism by which unconscious (NOT INVOLVING INSIGHT) com-
position occurs. Lowes proved convincingly that many diverse
passages which Coleridge had read over the years exerted influence
upon the construction of even a single stanza of one of the poet's
works. Coleridge had a phenomenal "tenacious and systematizing
memory," but he could not have recited all these passages, and they
were by no means all in his compendious notebook. The creative
magic that united all these particles into integral works of art,
which give no signs of being mosaics, was unconscious (UNREMEM-
BERED and NOT INVOLVING INSIGHT). It occurred in what Coleridge
called 5 "that shadowy half-being, that state of nascent existence in
the twilight of imagination and just on the vestibule of conscious-
ness" where rests (as he once said 6 ) "the confluence of our recollec-
tions [through which] we establish a centre, as it were, a sort of
nucleus in ... [this] reservoir of the soul."

In the field of music Mozart, among other composers, is said to

3 J. P. Eckermann, Gfspiache mit Goethe, Leipzig: Brockhaus, 1885, III, 211.

4 E. W. Scripture, Em Emblick in den unbewussten Versmcchamsmus, Ztschr. f. Psychol.,
102, 1927, 307-9.

5 S. T. Coleridge, tetters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, ed. E. H. Coleridge, London:
Heinemann, 1895, I, 377.

G S. T. Coleridge, Biogmphia Epistolaris, ed. A. Turnbull, London: Bell, 1911, II, 182.

THE FUNCTIONING OF INSIGHTLESS PROCESSES 185

have found that frequently the major processes of composition were
unconscious (NOT INVOLVING INSIGHT), and as Goethe's poetry often
came to its creator's consciousness ready-made, so did Mozart's music.
He said, in a letter which may not be wholly authentic, 7 that his
ideas crowded in upon him with the greatest ease imaginable, but
from where he did not know. All he did consciously was to choose
from an ample selection of possible passages that suggested them-
selves, and to arrange them.

In an interesting essay on "subconscious creation" de Gourmont
has written 8 that imaginative intellectual creation is inseparable from
"subconsciousness." He believed that the creative genius combines
the fruits of all the experiences of his life by a sort of chemistry that
is largely unconscious (NOT INVOLVING INSIGHT), to give rise to the
achievements which astonish the world.

Henderson has written of what practitioners of various trades
and professions would term intuitive judgments: 9

More often than not skillful diagnosticians reach a diagnosis be-
fore they are aware, or at any rate conscious, of the grounds that
justify their decision. If asked to explain the reasons for the diagnosis,
they often clearly show by their behavior that they are obliged to
think them out, and that to do so is an awkward task. This is true
of doctors, of lawyers, and of men of affairs. It is here cited as one
mark of a kind of skill, hardly ever learned except by long practice,
that is indispensable in the interpretation of what men say.

Illustrating these facts from the field of medicine are the examples
of remarkable snap diagnoses reported by Hankin in Case XI of
Chapter II (p. 60). A comparable instance from the law is to be
found in Judge J. C. Hutcheson's humorous and learned defense 10
of decision by intuition in legal cases. Though he admitted that
such judgment often appears like the tossing of Rabelais's "little
small dice," he believed that it is the most effective sort of decision,

7 Cf. O. Jahn, W. A. Mozart, Leipzig: Breitkopf und Hartel, 1858, III, 423-5-
8 R. de Gourmont, La culture des idecs, Paris: Soc. du Mercure de France, 1900, 50
and 53.

9 L. J. Henderson, Sociology 23 Introductory Lectures, 2nd ed., Private Distribution,
1938, 15. By permission of the author.

10 J. C. Hutcheson, Jr., The judgment intuitive, Cornell Law Quart., 14, 1929, 274-88.

186 INSIGHTLESS UNCONSCIOUSNESS

because it results from unconscious (INCOMMUNICABLE and NOT IN-
VOLVING INSIGHT) weighing of many complex and interrelated fac-
tors which could not be made explicit.

EXPERIMENTATION ON INSIGHTLESS UNCONSCIOUSNESS

Laboratory psychology since the middle of the last century has
been vaguely aware of unconscious (NOT INVOLVING INSIGHT) be-
havior, and in recent years has begun to develop a descriptive under-
standing of it. Helmholtz in the last century referred 11 to a kind
of incommunicable set, which he called an unconscious inference
(or conclusion), to explain certain sensory phenomena like illusions.
Though this theory has never been widely accepted, it explains the
facts with which it deals as well as any. Helmholtz believed that,
if in past experience one sort of stimulus was always accompanied
by another, one "unconsciously," as he said, must infer and hence
sense the second whenever the first is presented. It was his contention
that inferences about what is causing the sensation are made, and
result in the illusory perception, just as astronomers infer the size of
stars and their distance away from the photographs they take at
various parts of the earth's orbit. The only difference is that the
inference leading to the illusion is unconscious (NOT INVOLVING
INSIGHT and INCOMMUNICABLE) and for this reason, Helmholtz
believed, all the more binding. Many today would explain all this
in terms of conditioned responses, and say that it is unconscious in
the sense of CONDITIONED.

There are more complicated sorts of inference and thinking be-
havior which the individual carries on unconsciously (UNATTENDED
or NOT INVOLVING INSIGHT). A classic proof of this is Kohler's work 12
observing anthropoid apes. He studied how apes use tools and erect
structures in order to achieve a desired end. When bananas were put
out of the reach of one of the apes, outside her cage, and a stick was
left in the cage, she whimpered and made beseeching motions and

11 H. v. Helmholtz, Helmholtz' s Treatise on Physiological Optics, cd. J. P. C. Southall,
Menasha, Wis.: Optical Soc. of Amer., 1925, III, 3-6.

12 W. Kohler, The Mentality of Apes, New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1925.

EXPERIMENTATION ON INSIGHTLESS UNCONSCIOUSNESS 187

cries for several minutes. Then, as Kohler described it: 13 "She sud-
denly casts a look at the stick, ceases her moaning, seizes the stick,
stretches it out of the cage, and succeeds, though somewhat clumsily,
in drawing the bananas within arm's length." This same kind of
situation has also been observed in children. 14 The behavior of the
children was like that of the apes except that they talked during
the solving of their problems. In a typical problem situation the
child would be put in a play-pen with a stick near by, and he would
try to get a toy placed out of reach of his hand. The remarkable
characteristic of many of these problem-solving scenes has been ob-
served to be the suddenness with which the final act leading to
success is undertaken. The apes usually had little regard for the
tools they finally employed until all at once they reached for them
and used them. The children often did not speak of the aids of
which they finally availed themselves until they made use of them.
For these reasons it seems likely that the steps in solving these
problems were unconscious (NOT INVOLVING INSIGHT) until the pre-
fabricated solution suddenly came "in a flash of insight."

The most enlightening experiment on insight in human beings
has been performed by Maier. 15 He wanted to reconstruct the stages
of solution of a difficult problem which is solved unconsciously
(NOT INVOLVING INSIGHT) and whose answer suddenly appears in
consciousness. The aims of his investigation were to find if the
solution develops step wise or as a whole; what the subjects expe-
rienced consciously just before the solution was found; and whether
they knew what factors helped to produce the proper answer.

The task set for Maier's subjects was to tie two cords together.
These cords were so hung from the ceiling and were of such a length
that a person holding one could not reach the other. There were
many objects in the room: pliers, clamps, ringstands, cords, poles,

18 ibid., 33.

14 A. Alpcrt, The Solving of Problem-Situations by Preschool Children, New York:
Teachers College, Columbia University, Contributions to Education, 1928, No. 323; P. P.
Brainard, The mentality of a child compared with that of apes, /. Genet. Psychol., 37,
1930, 268-93; an d E. Mathcson, A study of problem solving behavior in pre-school
children, Child Development, 2, 1931, 242-62.

15 N. R. F. Maier, Reasoning in humans. II, /. Comp. Psychol., 12, 1931, 181-94.

188 INSIGHTLESS UNCONSCIOUSNESS

tables, and chairs. With this equipment there were several possible
solutions of this task, as, for instance, tying one rope to a chair or a
table, and then going and getting the other. The subject was asked
to continue finding solutions to the problems until a specific one
was achieved. The acceptable one was weighting one of the cords
with a pair of pliers, swinging it like a pendulum, and then going
to the other cord and catching the swinging rope as it came toward
the other one.

As subjects Maier used 116 college students. Sixty-one were given
hints if they did not find the acceptable solution in about ten min-
utes. (This is the important group.) Another group of fifty-five
control subjects was never given hints. The hints used were: First,
the experimenter, walking toward the window, by apparent acci-
dent brushed against one cord and gave it a slight pendular motion.
If this did not cause the proper solution to occur to the subject
within a few moments, a second hint was given. This time the
experimenter gave the subject a pair of pliers and informed him
that the problem could be solved with its aid alone. If this hint was
ineffective, the subject was shown the solution. Twenty-four per-
formed the task without any assistance; twenty-three did it after
hints were given; and fourteen were unsuccessful even after both
hints.

Those twenty-three subjects who solved the problem after hints
had been given were carefully studied as the most significant group.
Seven reported introspectively that the solution appeared in steps;
for instance, the ideas of swinging a cord and of attaching a weight
came to mind separately. To the other sixteen the correct procedure
occurred as a single unit. Though, out of the seven who solved the
problem in steps, six said that the final success was due to the first
hint, fifteen of the sixteen to whom the solution came as a unit
failed to report having noticed the first hint. When these last sub-
jects were asked whether they had seen the cord swinging or not,
most of them insisted that they were unconscious (UNAWARE OF
DISCRIMINATION) of having been helped by it. Even if these subjects
did report that they were unconscious of the hints, there were two

INSIGHTLESS PROCESSES, "CHANCE," AND "FREE WILL" 189

important proofs that they were of assistance: (a) Of the control
group only twenty per cent found the solution after ten minutes, so
the extra working time after the hints were given did not account
for the successful results of the decisive group; and () the time
between the hint and the solution was always short, averaging
forty-two seconds. Maier concluded from his findings that the per-
ception of the solution of a problem is sudden, and comes without
the intermediate stages having been conscious.

THE RELATION OF INSIGHTLESS PROCESSES TO
"CHANCE" AND "FREE-WILL" BEHAVIOR

In his monumental Philosophy of the Unconscious Hartmann,
the precocious genius intellectually beyond his age, was also beyond
his time when he wrote 16 that "the Unconscious" in artistic creation
selects the items that are to enter consciousness in accordance with
the purpose of the work in hand. He believed that a train of thought
may appear to be uncontrolled fantasy, but that the associations
which make it up are always regulated by the prevailing interests,
feelings, and moods of the moment. He further maintained 17 that
development and alteration of our beliefs and convictions usually
progress by a sort of unconscious (NOT INVOLVING INSIGHT) diges-
tion and assimilation of the opinions of others, with which we may
even have disagreed originally, until we are astonished one day to
find we have a new attitude on the subject in question.

The data on which Hartmann based this theory were by no
means so adequate as those already discussed in this chapter, but
what he said is rapidly being proved true by these and other find-
ings. The origins of our thoughts and actions may be entirely un-
conscious (INSIGHTLESS), we may even think they are due to "chance"
or our own "free-will," but actually they are intricately bound up
with our past environment or heredity, a past we may have for-
gotten or of which, perhaps, we were never conscious (ABLE TO
COMMUNICATE) .

16 E. v. Hartmann, Philosophy of the Unconscious, trans. W. C. Coupland, London:
Kegan Paul, Trench, Triibner, 1893, I, 284.
321-3.

190 INSIGHTLESS UNCONSCIOUSNESS

Freud blew this horn of Hartmann's so frequently 18 that it has
almost lost its resonance, but his industry has had its effect. There
are few who can face the facts that can be mustered today and still
fail to recognize that the activities of ours which we can least ex-
plain are determined in the same way as those whose causes we
understand. There is no scientific basis for the fallacy still so com-
monly expressed: "I ought to know why I acted that way: I did it."
It is unfortunately true that we are often more unconscious (IN-
SIGHTLESS) of the causes of our behavior than our psychoanalysts,
priests, or neighbors.

THE SUDDEN DEVELOPMENT OF INSIGHT

Where insight is spoken of, the theories of the Gestalt school of
psychology cannot be far away. According to this doctrine all sorts
of unconscious processes must be explained in terms of the trace^
which useful concept we shall investigate in detail in the next
chapter. The trace is the form in which a past experience persists
in the organism, unconscious (UNREMEMBERED) until it floats to the
surface of consciousness. Koffka pictured 19 these traces as not at all
static, but under dynamic stresses which serve to interrelate them in
various ways. In their storehouse these memories are not pigeon-
holed, but are continually being reorganized to suit the exigencies
of the moment. The individual is usually unconscious (INSIGHTLESS)
of this activity until suddenly the creature of this reorganization
bobs up into consciousness. This is the moment of insight, and the
Gestaltists like to emphasize the instantaneousness of it Kohler's
apes acted suddenly, and Maier's subjects all at once saw the solu-
tion of their problem.

This rapid alteration of behavior is a phenomenon so striking
that it has been overemphasized. It means that some process has at
that moment reached such a level of the nervous system that insight
about it is gained, and in human beings it usually becomes conscious

18 E.g., S. Freud, The Basic Writings of Sigmund Freud, ed. A. A. Brill, New York:
Random House, 1938 (The Interpretation of Dreams} , 482-3.

18 K. KofTka, in C. M. Child et al., The Unconscious: A Symposium, New York: Knopf,
1929, 58-9.

THE SUDDEN DEVELOPMENT OF INSIGHT 191

(COMMUNICABLE). Reaching that level does not necessarily alter the
process in any way. Suppose the process is learning how to play a
sonata. A piano teacher has three children, all of whom want to
learn to play sonatas. She gives the first child one page of a sonata
and then another and another, and he does not recognize that they
are related. One day she tells him to play the pages consecutively,
and he is astonished to discover he has learned to play a sonata. The
teacher follows the same plan with the second child, but he moves
away the week before she is going to spring her surprise on him,
and never discovers what he has learned. To the third child she
gives the whole sonata in one book. He learns a page a week, and
realizes that when the last page is memorized he will be able to play
a sonata. This example shows that the unconscious (NOT INVOLVING
INSIGHT) learning process is not necessarily different from the con-
scious (INVOLVING INSIGHT). Coleridge might have written The Rime
of the Ancient Mariner deliberately attempting to use phrases of
other writers. That is not to imply that it would have been the same
poem as it turned out to be when it was done without insight, but
it is to say that the creative process may proceed either consciously
or unconsciously (NOT INVOLVING INSIGHT).

Psychologists are to be found who do not agree with statements
like the preceding one, but who think, for instance, that the occur-
rence of consciousness (INVOLVING INSIGHT) suddenly modifies the
curves representing the rate of learning. They base their argument
on experiments like Pickford's. 20 The task in this research was to
find a common feature in geometrical figures shown to the subject.
When he saw what he thought was the common feature, the subject
responded by pushing a key. The apparatus was so constructed that
a bell rang if he made the correct response. Introspections were
given after each trial. Before insight developed, the correct responses
occurred at only chance frequency. Afterward there was a high
percentage of right responses. This is the sort of evidence which has
led Tolman, Thorndike, Rock, and others to suggest gradualness
of rise of the learning curve as a criterion for unconsciousness (NOT

20 R. W. Pickford, An experiment on insight, Brit. /. Psychol., 28, 1938, 412-23.

192 INSIGHTLESS UNCONSCIOUSNESS

INVOLVING INSIGHT). The Gestalt presumption has been that if in
learning a skill or solving a problem there is sudden improvement,
insight has occurred. Tolman wrote: 21 "Wherever there is a sudden
drop in the learning curve, there there is consciousness. For only by
representation of its results (through memory or imagination) could
acts hitherto infrequent become thus suddenly and consistently fre-
quent." Apparently by the phrase "a sudden drop in the learning
curve," Tolman meant an improvement in the ability to perform
the task. It is fairly obvious that he means that such behavioral
indices give evidence of the dawning of consciousness.

Corroborating some findings of Thorndike ct al 22 in 1932, Thorn-
dike and Rock performed two experiments 23 whose results, they
said, showed that learning may proceed without awareness of what
is being learned or intent to learn it. In one of these, a free-associa-
tion experiment, the task was to respond to the stimulus-words
rapidly. Responses were judged right or wrong by the experimenter,
and the subjects were told that this was done on the basis of an
arbitrary list of "right" responses for each stimulus-word. Actually
words with sequential connections (i.e., what might normally be
the next word in a sentence, as forest fires) were called right and
rewarded, and the subjects learned to give such free associations
rather than others, such as those connected with the stimulus-word
by meaning. Because the learning curve rose slowly, the experi-
menters assumed that the subjects were not aware of the task, on
the grounds that with insight the curves would have risen almost
immediately to nearly one hundred per cent correctness. The ex-
perimenters also devised a skill test on the same principle, which
resulted much the same way.

Irwin, Kauflfman, Prior, and Weaver did not believe^ 4 that the
gradualness of the rise of the learning curve was an adequate cri-

21 E. C. Tolman, A bchavioristic theory of ideas, Psychol. Rev., 33, 1926, 366-7.

22 E. L. Thorndike et al., The Fundamentals of Learning, New York: Teachers College,
Columbia University, 1932, 207 fi.

23 E. L. Thorndike and R. T. Rock, Jr., Learning without awareness of what is being
learned or intent to learn it, /. Exper. PsychoL, 17, 1934, 1-19.

24 F. W. Irwin, K. KaufTman, G. Prior, and H. B. Weaver, On 'learning without aware-
ness of what is being learned,' /. Exper. PsychoL, 17, 1934, 823-7.

INSIGHTLESS PERCEPTION AND LEARNING 193

terion of learning without awareness, and criticized Thorndike and
Rock for using it. They rejected this criterion because they had
conducted Thorndike and Rock's association-test, telling their sub-
jects the purpose of the experiment half way through it. This did
not make the learning curve rise rapidly to one hundred per cent.
In a reply, Thorndike and Rock admitted 25 the invalidity of their
criterion of gradualness, but said that their experiment still con-
tained much evidence for learning without awareness. They had
not asked the subjects whether they were aware of the task, and no
other criterion was proposed, so it is difficult to understand to what
evidence they referred. Irwin closed the debate with a short note 28
renewing his earlier request for such a criterion. There is at present
no proof, though Thorndike's writing 27 makes him appear to believe
that there is, that unconscious (NOT INVOLVING INSIGHT) learning
proceeds differently from conscious.

INSIGHTLESS PERCEPTION AND LEARNING

There are important studies which show that it is possible to learn
to differentiate stimuli while unconscious (INSIGHTLESS) of the basis
for distinguishing them.

(a) First there is the body of work on mediate association. Hamil-

ton wrote:

Now it sometimes happens, that we find one thought rising im-
mediately after another in consciousness, but whose consecution we
can reduce to no law of association. Now in these cases we can gen-
erally discover by an attentive observation, that these two thoughts,
though not themselves associated, are each associated with certain
other thoughts; so that the whole consecution would have been
regular, had these intermediate thoughts come into consciousness,
between the two which are not immediately associated. Suppose, for

25 E. L. Thorndike and R. T. Rock, Jr., A further note on learning without awareness
of what is being learned, /. Exper. PsychoL, 18, 1935, 388-9.
20 F. W. Irwin, A rejoinder, /. Exper. PsychoL, 18, 1935, 389.

27 Cf. E. L. Thorndike et al., The Psychology of Wants, Interests and Attitudes, New
York: Appleton-Century, 1935, 70.

28 W. Hamilton, Lectures on Metaphysics and Logic, Edinburgh: Blackwood, 1859, I,
352-3.

194 INSIGHTLESS UNCONSCIOUSNESS

instance, that A, B, C, are three thoughts. ... A suggests C, not
immediately, but through B; but as B, like the half of the minimum
visibile or minimum audibile, does not rise into consciousness, we
are apt to consider it as non-existent. . . . An instance of this occurs
to me with which I was recently struck. Thinking of Ben Lomond
[a mountain in Scotland], this thought was immediately followed
by the thought of the Prussian system of education. Now, conceivable
connection between these two ideas in themselves, there was none.
A little reflection, however, explained the anomaly. On my last visit
to the mountain, I had met upon its summit a German gentleman,
and though I had no consciousness of the intermediate and un-
awakened links between Ben Lomond and the Prussian schools, they
were undoubtedly these, the German, Germany, Prussia, and,
these media being admitted, the connection between the extremes was
manifest.

Scripture 29 first subjected this theory of mediate association to
experimental test. He exposed to six subjects first a series of cards,
each with a Japanese script letter, and a Japanese word spelled out
in Latin letters. Then he exposed a similar series, each with one of
the same Japanese script letters and a German word spelled out.
Then either one of the German or one of the Japanese words alone
was shown, and the subject reported what idea it suggested to him.
The subject was usually unable to tell why these ideas came to him.
In a total of 185 trials, seventy-nine reported associations were words
on one of the cards. When those cases were excluded whose asso-
ciation might be explained by some extraneous factor, two-thirds
of the associated words were related to the stimulus words by their
having common Japanese script letters on their cards. Scripture
believed this showed that unconscious (INCOMMUNICABLE and NOT
INVOLVING INSIGHT) factors can give rise to a conscious association
of two apparently unrelated ideas.

Despite the criticisms of Smith, 30 which are not altogether valid,
this study of Scripture's has important implications. Similar work
has been done by Cordes, Messer, Munsterberg, Smith, Howe, and

29 E. W. Scripture, Ucber den associativcn Vcrlauf dcr Vorstellungen, Leipzig: Engel-
mann, 1891, 31-8; reprinted in Phtlos. Studten y 7, 1892, 76-83.

30 W. G. Smith, Mediate association, Mind, 3, 1894, 291.

INSIGHTLESS PERCEPTION AND LEARNING 195

Ordahl 31 with conflicting results. This problem still is in need of
further careful investigation, because its solution is of great impor-
tance to the study of the general question of unconsciousness (NOT
INVOLVING INSIGHT).

Research much like Scripture's, but not so well controlled, was
reported by Sidis 32 a few years later. He corroborated Scripture's
findings.

(b) Ordahl found 33 that, in learning to throw balls accurately, to
write in unaccustomed ways, and to multiply large numbers men-
tally, subjects were frequently unconscious (INSIGHTLESS and UNABLE
TO COMMUNICATE) of important factors which led to improvements
in their skill. In the case of the ball throwing, not only were these
factors unreportable, but if attention were directed to them the skill
was definitely diminished. This same circumstance is often reported
to be true of swimming, riding bicycles, and such muscular acts.

(c) Frequently unconscious (INCOMMUNICABLE) sets or tendencies
to make certain sorts of judgments concerning specific classes of
objects or persons may be developed. The effects of prejudices upon
action are usually unconscious (INCOMMUNICABLE). There are judges
who in all sincerity attempt to decide every case on its merits and
who would be astounded to find the proportion of the foreign-born
defendants they had found guilty was significantly larger than that
of the native-born citizens. The most convincing illustration of the
operation of such an unconscious (INCOMMUNICABLE) set is the
experimentation of Rees and Israel. 34 They made lists of five-letter
words with scrambled letters. The subject's task was to unscramble
the letters, as in anagrams. There were two sets of anagrams. One
set was nonambiguous (in which the letters could be arranged to"
make only one word) and the other was ambiguous (which could be
arranged to make more than one word). The subjects were divided

81 For references to this work cf. L. E. Ordahl, Consciousness in relation to memory,
Amer. /. Psychol., 22, 1911, 164-5 an< ^ 179-81.

32 B. Sidis, The Psychology of Suggestion, New York: Applcton, 1898, 172-7.

33 L. E. Ordahl, Consciousness in relation to learning, Amer. /. Psychol, 22, 1911, 188-203.
84 H. J. Rees and H. E. Israel, An investigation of the establishment and operation of

mental sets, in Studies in psychology from Smith College, Psychol. Monog. t 46, 1935, No.
210, 1-26.

196 INSIGHTLESS UNCONSCIOUSNESS

into two groups, each of which was given a training series with non-
ambiguous anagrams. For one group all the solutions were "nature"
words, and, for the other, words having to do with eating. Then both
groups were given ambiguous anagrams which for one group con-
tained possible "nature" solutions and for the other possible "eating"
solutions. It was found that the training series successfully established
a set, so that more ambiguous anagrams were solved after the man-
ner of the set developed (nature words for one group, eating words
for the other) than otherwise. Some subjects, when asked if they were
aware of the set, reported that they were, but others had no idea of
it. Nevertheless, these latter were as much affected by the set as
the former.

(d) Unconscious (NOT INVOLVING INSIGHT) conditioning was done
by Diven. 35 The subjects were told that the experiment was on muscle
co-ordination. They gave free associations to a series of words. Twelve
seconds after each time a certain critical word (e.g., the word
barn) was presented, the subjects received an electric shock.
In the meantime they had given several associations, and their at-
tention had been directed away from the critical stimulus. This
diversion of attention, together with the fact that the shock occurred
so long after the critical word, resulted in the connection between
them being unconscious (INCOMMUNICABLE) for twenty-one out of
fifty-one subjects. These subjects did not know of any rationale for
the shocking. Nevertheless measurements of functions mediated by
the autonomic nervous system indicated that, after several shocks,
these physiological processes began to become apparent whenever
critical words or even words indirectly related to them were given
to the subjects. The subjects were unconscious (UNABLE TO COM-
MUNICATE) both of when the shock was coming and of the physiolog-
ical changes.

THE EFFICIENCY OF INSIGHTLESS PROCESSES

These researches all show that one's present and future behavior
may be modified by the past without one's being conscious (IN-

35 K. Divcn, Certain determinants in the conditioning of anxiety reactions, /. PsychoL,
a. ioV7. 201-108.

THE EFFICIENCY OF INSIGHTLESS PROCESSES 197

SIGHTFUL) of the nature of the modification or even that it is going
on. If this is true, the problem that arises is in what way, if at all,
unconscious (NOT INVOLVING INSIGHT) processes differ from conscious.
Some believe 36 that creative thought and judgments are more
efficient if they occur unconsciously (NOT INVOLVING INSIGHT). Al-
ready in this chapter a case has been mentioned (p. 184) in which
this belief was illustrated in the translating of a poem. It has also
been stated (p. 185) that good physicians frequently make correct
diagnoses unconsciously (INSIGHTLESS) and cannot immediately, or
sometimes ever, give their reasons. Unconscious (NOT INVOLVING
INSIGHT) legal judgments, too, have been praised (pp. 185-186) as
more adequate than conscious ones. The following anecdote illus-
trates how this may be true: 37

First it may be explained that Lord Mansfield (1705-1793) was
one of the greatest of English lawyers and is regarded as the founder
of English mercantile law. It happened that a friend of his was ap-
pointed Governor of a West Indian Island. He told Lord Mansfield
that the one thing he dreaded about his post was that he would
have to sit as a judge and decide cases. Upon which Lord Mansfield
advised him to decide according to his notions of commonsense, but
never to give his reasons; "for," said he, "your judgments will proba-
bly be right, but your reasons will certainly be wrong."

Thus one of the greatest of English lawyers, whose profound
knowledge of the law and whose long experience enabled him to
rely on his formal reason, advised his friend, who had no experience,
to mistrust his formal reason and imitate the jury in relying, in legal
matters, on his subconscious judgment.

There was a curious sequel to the story. Some years afterwards,
Lord Mansfield, while sitting on Privy Council appeals, had a judg-
ment of this Governor brought before his court, which seemed sg
absurd in its reasons that there was serious clamour for the recall
of the Governor as incompetent. It was found, however, that the
decision itself was perfectly right. It appeared that, at first, the Gov-
ernor had acted on Lord Mansfield's advice by deciding without
giving reasons; and, finding that he acquired a great reputation

86 E.g., R. dc Gourmont, op. cit., 49.

87 From C. James, Curiosities of Law and Lawyers, London: Sampson Law, 1882, 59.
This wording is the story as retold by H. Hankin, in Common Sense, New York: Button,
1926, 44-5. By permission of E. P. Dutton & Company, Inc., and of Kegan Paul, Trench,
Trubner and Company, Ltd.

198 INSIGHTLESS UNCONSCIOUSNESS

thereby, began to think himself a great lawyer, and then, at length,
took to giving his reasons with the above-mentioned result.

Besides the accuracy of unconscious (NOT INVOLVING INSIGHT)
judgments, their ease and speed have been adduced as proofs that
they are more efficient. It is obvious that, if the decision comes to
consciousness ready-made, it seems subjectively easier to make, just
as a prefabricated house is easier to build than a log cabin. As far
as increased speed of judgment goes, Hankin commented: 38

If one says to a business man, and if the idea is new to him, that
being rich doesn't consist in having money: it consists in having
more money than other people he instantly smiles. But on making
this remark to a socialist, he was observed by me to frown instantly.
In either case a moment's thought was all that was needed to form
an opinion. But what a number of past experiences, of stored data,
of preconceived ideas, of beliefs and feelings, must be involved and
must be used by the subconscious mind to produce the smile or the
frown! And what time would be needed to bring them all out into
consciousness and to weigh them in conscious reasoning! It is this
extreme rapidity of the work of the subconscious mind that is its
salient character and that most urgently needs to be explained.

Undoubtedly one reason why conscious judgments seem to take
longer than unconscious (NOT INVOLVING INSIGHT and INCOMMU-
NICABLE) is that they are almost always verbalized, either overtly
or covertly, and the framing of proper wording is a time-consuming
process. The essential reason why unconscious (NOT INVOLVING
INSIGHT) judgments are more accurate, easier, and more rapid, how-
ever, is that they have been frequently practiced. Judgments do not
occur unconsciously (NOT INVOLVING INSIGHT or UNATTENDED) unless
they concern situations with which the individual has dealt so often
before that he can treat them automatically. As Henderson observed
(cf. p. 185), it is the practice that causes both the automatic character
of the judgment and its efficiency; it is not better merely because it
is unconscious (NOT INVOLVING INSIGHT or UNATTENDED). Hankin re-

38 H. Hankin, Common Sense, New York: Dutton, 1926, 53. By permission of E. P.
Dutton & Company, Inc., and of Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Company, Ltd.

THE EFFICIENCY OF INSIGHTLESS PROCESSES 199

ported a case illustrating this: 39 "He can recognise bad character in
an Indian but less easily than in an Englishman, but he finds it very
difficult to form an opinion of a Chinaman." This man could judge
the kind of face which he had most often evaluated. He had no idea
upon what characteristics of the face he made his judgments.

Here we find ourselves at a final possible explanation of why
unconscious (NOT INVOLVING INSIGHT) decisions often seem more
adequate than conscious. Why did Hankin's friend not know the
basis of his character evaluations? Why did the West Indian gov-
ernor find himself unable to give the reasons for his decisions ? Why
did Ordahl's subjects become worse in ball throwing when they
concentrated upon the mechanism of the action? Most probably
because they had depended on subliminal cues of some sort to per-
form these acts properly stimuli which could not reach the center
of verbalization of the central nervous system and hence were un-
conscious (INCOMMUNICABLE). Of course the governor may have
forgotten the bases for his adjudication long before he pronounced
it, just as the jury forgets most of the testimony, but probably he
founded it mainly on such intangibles of face and carriage as
Hankin's friend used, and could not have told what they were even
at the moment he first perceived them. Probably in attending to
the act of throwing balls Ordahl's subjects inhibited the effect of
subliminal impulses from the muscles and elsewhere which governed
the ball-throwing adjustments but were not strong enough to reach
the "seat of consciousness."

As Freud once observed, 40 there is a whole series of activities which
are best performed when they are automatic, receiving little con-
scious attention. Possible explanations for this fact are: (a) conscious-
ness inhibits the effect of subliminal stimuli. on behavior; () con-
sciousness cannot act on the basis of unconscious (UNREMEMBERED)
experience; and, most important, (c) the most practiced activities
are the most likely to be automatic.

89 Ibid., 25.

40 S. Freud, The Basic Writings of Sigmund Freud, ed. A. A. Brill (Psychopathology of
Everyday Lt'fe), 94.

200 INSIGHTLESS UNCONSCIOUSNESS

In Chapter VII, however, it was demonstrated that certain acts
are improved during attentive consciousness. How can this apparent
conflict be resolved? Ordahl once suggested 41 that the more physical
and muscular actions are better performed unconsciously (INSIGHT-
LESS?), but that the "higher mental processes" are more efficient
when conscious. If speed is an index of efficiency, Ordahl's state-
ment does not agree with the facts, for consciousness (ATTENDED)
has been shown (pp. 168-169) to reduce simple reaction times and
unconsciousness (NOT INVOLVING INSIGHT) has been demonstrated
(pp. 197-198) to be the best condition for such complex behavior as
the West Indian governor's legal decisions.

The fact of the matter probably is that novel, changing situations
are best faced consciously (INSIGHTFUL and ATTENDING), but that
familiar acts are frequently better performed unconsciously (IN-
SIGHTLESS and UNATTENDING). The rest of this chapter is devoted to
amplifying this statement.

NOVELTY, HABIT, AND THE PRINCIPLE OF UTILITY

It is by no means original to say that there is relation between the
novel or change and consciousness, on the one hand, and habitua-
tion and unconsciousness (UNATTENDED), on the other. A quarter
of a century ago Washburn worked this notion into her motor
theory of consciousness: 42

Introspection suggests that the more smoothly and easily a move-
ment occurs, the less consciousness accompanies it. The process of
habit formation is the convincing instance of this. A beginner at rid-
ing the bicycle makes the movements of balancing himself with
anxious attention and care; later they occur smoothly, accurately, and
unconsciously. In current physiological theory the ease with which
a movement is performed is held to be due to the low resistance
offered at the synapses or meeting-points of neurones which the
nervous process has to traverse: hence it has been suggested that
consciousness accompanies a high degree of synaptic resistance, un-
consciousness a low degree.

41 L. E. Ordahl, op. cit., 202-3.

42 M. F. Washburn, Movement and Mental Imagery, New York: Hough ton Mifflin,
1916, 20.

NOVELTY, HABIT, AND THE PRINCIPLE OF UTILITY 201

The "current physiological theory" has been held in some form
by, among others, Montague, Thurstone, White, Spencer, Romanes,
Mercier, and McDougall. 43 This doctrine makes consciousness
appear to be like heat developed by resistance to the passage of an
impulse at the synapse. If there is no choice to be made, because the
situation is the same as many before and habituation has worn the
neural path "smooth," then there is no "heat." When a change in
the situation occurs, a choice between several actions has to be
made, and hence there is "consciousness" at the synapse.

Though this neural explanation of consciousness has been widely
supported, it is based merely on introspection as to what situations
produce consciousness, coupled with groundless speculation about
the nervous system. It does not even explain all the introspective
data, for it is generally recognized that actions which have been
performed automatically may return to consciousness. Holt has
pointed out, 44 though, that by the terms of this theory, once an act
has worn its path smooth, it cannot become conscious again unless
relearned on a new set of nerves. Even if this theory is generally
discredited, it contains one important truth that with practice re-
peated actions in customary situations tend to be carried out uncon-
sciously (UNATTENDING). Probably a better interpretation of this fact,
fitting in well with the data supporting Head's theory of vigilance,
is Holt's analysis. 45 He suggested that the reason one performs
habitual acts inattentively is that, upon being learned, they are
integrated into a more comprehensive behavioral unit which is at-
tended to as a whole, and whose components pass out of attention.

In condoning the gullibility of us human beings in believing
without criticism or check many things that are told to us, Murphy,

43 W. P. Montague, Consciousness a form of energy, in Essays Philosophical and Psy-
chological in Honor of William James, New York: Longmans, Green, 1908, 128 ff; L. L.
Thurstone, The anticipatory aspect of consciousness, /. Philos., Psychol., and Set. Methods,
16, 1919, 561-8; and W. A. White, in C. M. Child et al., The Unconscious: A Symposium,
New York: Knopf, 1929, 254-5. E- B. Holt, The Freudian Wish, New York: Holt, 1915,
190, is the authority for the fact that the others maintained this theory.

44 E. B. Holt, The Freudian Wish, New York: Holt, 1915, 190-1.

45 Ibid., 189.

202 INSIGHTLESS UNCONSCIOUSNESS

Murphy, and Newcomb wrote 46 that life could scarcely be lived if
we were forever on guard. This statement is not strong enough: it
is part of the thrifty plan of conservation of our organisms to allow
the attention to be lulled into relaxation by any stable situation.
Pavlov's dogs fell asleep during any monotonous conditioning (cf.
pp. 123-124), even when the stimuli were powerful electric shocks. In
Janet's metaphor, 47 the individual attempts to conserve his bank
account of "psychological force" by spending no more attention
than necessary.

The tendency of habitual activities to become unconscious
(UNATTENDED) and the tendency of the reorganization of memory
traces in the production of new creations to proceed unconsciously
(NOT INVOLVING INSIGHT) point to a principle of utility in the or-
ganism. It would appear that processes of a repetitive character can
be carried on without consciousness, and that in general this is what
happens, so that the highest levels of nervous integration may be
left free for novel activities.

In speculating on the character of unconscious (NOT INVOLVING
INSIGHT) functions, one hypothesis which can be suggested is that
solving a problem such as the mathematical puzzle which engrossed
Poincare (cf. Case IX of Chapter II, pp. 55-56), or writing poetry
as Coleridge did (cf. Case X of Chapter II, pp. 57-59), is like trying
to fit many pieces of a jig-saw puzzle into a certain place until
finally one slips in. The organizing and reorganizing of numerous
mental traces until finally the desired solution or creative product
results may well be a long, tedious task because of the multitude of
possible combinations. Hence, by the principle of utility, it would
best be performed unconsciously (NOT INVOLVING INSIGHT). (It has
been suggested by de Gourmont 48 that this experimental process of
trial and error leading to the final production may go on even dur-

48 G. Murphy, L. B. Murphy, and T. M. Newcomb, Experimental Social Psychology,
rev. eel., New York: Harper, 1937, 171.

47 Cf. P. Janet, Psychological strength and weakness in mental diseases, in Factors
Determining Human Behavior, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1937, 70-1.

48 R. de Gourmont, op. cit., 64.

ENVIRONMENTAL NOVELTY AND INSIGHT 203

ing sleep.) When the desired result is accomplished, according to
this hypothesis, it appears in consciousness as a flash of insight.

On the other hand it may be that the combinations are carried on
consciously, but that the unsuccessful attempts to solve the problem
are immediately forgotten as soon as they are discarded as unsatis-
factory. Only the successful attempt finally is remembered. It may
be that the creative individual spends long hours of such fantasy,
forgetting immediately afterward most of what passes through his
mind. It seems certain that the inventive discovery is not made
unless the field has been well thought over, again and again. "Dans
les champs de I' observation le hasard nc favorise que les esprits pre-
pares." The immediate rejection and forgetting of unsatisfactory
solutions may also be interpreted in the light of the utility principle
as an effort to keep from cluttering consciousness with useless ma-
terial.

It would be possible to determine experimentally which, if either,
of these two alternative descriptions of the creative process is cor-
rect. Subjects could be put to solving a difficult problem requiring a
prolonged period of study, and then be asked from time to time
what they were thinking of. If the amount of time spent in conscious
(COMMUNICABLE) thought on the question, as measured by this
method, correlated well with speed or adequacy of solution, it would
suggest that the conscious thought was the essential element in the
solution. Then it could be assumed that the reason all this thought
cannot be reported later is that the unsatisfactory trials are forgot-
ten. If, on the other hand, the correlation were low, it would seem
likely that the whole process was unconscious (NOT INVOLVING IN-
SIGHT). *

THE RELATION BETWEEN ENVIRONMENTAL NOVELTY
AND INSIGHT

Until death r the lowest depths of unconsciousness (UNRESPON-
SIVE TO STIMULATION) have engulfed a person, his attention may
wander far or seem to disappear, but a sudden change in any part
of the environment which is important to him can always call it

204 INSIGHTLESS UNCONSCIOUSNESS

back. In Chapter VII (pp. 173-174) it was demonstrated that any
heterogeneity of stimulation demands attentive consciousness. Ford
has said 49 that one may characterize as attention "that mental co-
ordination which exists at the beginning of a new and novel stimu-
lus combination." Objective evidences of attention appear rapidly
after any sudden stimulation.

(a) Often the first of these is the startle pattern, which Landis
and Hunt have investigated 30 in human beings. They find this
reaction to a sudden stimulus of an intense sort in any sense modality
to be brief, stylized, general flexion of body and face muscles. The
response usually lasts less than one-half second, and is rarely caused
to disappear by neurological lesions, or "voluntary" inhibition.
Landis and Hunt said 51 that the startle pattern is a type of catas-
trophic behavior occurring when sudden, intense stimulation indi-
cates that an emergency exists to which adjustment must be made.
As Dewey noted, 52 this sort of reaction is accompanied subjectively
by confusion and temporary bewilderment as well as a sudden
increase in attention.

() A wealth of experimentation shows 53 that, along with the
startle pattern and many other physiological changes which take
place upon development of insightful and attentive consciousness,
there is a rapid rise of the electrical conductivity of the skin the
galvanic skin response.

(c) Karl Biihler referred 54 to the "aha experience," which is out-
wardly the sudden physiological reaction, often the drawing in of
breath, occurring with sudden insight into the nature of a situation.
Under such circumstances one is likely to say "aha." The organism
has been behaving somewhat automatically, following habitual re-
action patterns, and then in an instant something that has been

49 A. Ford, Attention-automatization, Amer. J. Psycho!., 41, 1929, 31. By permission of
the American Journal of Psychology.

50 C. Landis and W. A. Hunt, The Startle Pattern, New York: Farrar and Rmehart, 1939.

61 Ibid., 154.

62 J. Dewey, Human Nature and Conduct, New York: Holt, 1922, 175-83.

53 E.g., C. Landis and W. A. Hunt, The conscious correlates of the galvanic skin
response, /. Exper. PsychoL, 18, 1935, 505-29.

64 C/. K. Buhler, Sprachtheorie, Jena: Fischer, 1934, 311.

THE GUARDING POINT AND SURPRISE 205

unconscious (NOT INVOLVING INSIGHT) reaches the conscious, com-
municable level. Attention perforce follows such a sudden insight.
Subjectively it is the exclamatory mood, objectively it is indicated
by the presence of the motor concomitants of attention.

(d) A like happening is found in much humor. The fun in
Dorothy Parker's verse lies in the way she can lull one to quiescence
with beautiful love poetry for three stanzas and then double back
and slap one in the face with a pert, disillusioned final line.

(e) Another case, either humorous or serious, is the delayed re-
action, a favorite device of the comedian Edward Everett Horton.
He is absent-mindedly carrying on a tete-a-tete when his partner in
the conversation insults him. This would cause a startle reaction
in most people. Instead, because of the pleasant or usual form in
which it is phrased, Horton accepts the statement for a moment
with a nod and faint smile. Then the threat to his equanimity
dawns on him, and his startle pattern is supernormal. In that lies
the humor of the situation.

Fred Matter, a survivor of the torpedoing of the Belgian freighter
Ville de Namur on June 19, 1940, wrote 55 that he always had be-
lieved that the delayed reaction was a Hollywood invention until
his boat was torpedoed. During the turmoil after the ship was hit
he saw the night watchman standing on the last step of the com-
panionway, motionless and apparently half asleep. Matter slapped
him and said, "Come on, man, your lifebelt, we're sinking." The
watchman continued smiling contentedly for a long moment, and
then, suddenly, with an exclamation, he turned and bolted toward
his cabin.

THE GUARDING POINT AND SURPRISE

In terms of nervous-system function, we can say that all these
cases represent a sudden redevelopment of vigilance in the highest
integration centers. The organism, like a fire department, always
has a "guarding point" 56 on watch, and when the alarm sounds it

65 Cf. Life, 9, No. 8, Aug. 19, 1940, 56-7.

50 Cf. V. Bakhtiarov, (The problem of narcolepsy), Sovet. NcvropatoL, 1932, No. 8,
405-40 (not viewed).

206 INSIGHTLESS UNCONSCIOUSNESS

summons all necessary forces at once. Consciousness (INVOLVING
INSIGHT and ATTENDED) arises from unconsciousness (NOT INVOLVING-
INSIGHT and UNATTENDED) when the lazing organism is faced point
blank with a change in environment. It may be beneficial or harm-
ful the determination of that comes second. First, attention to the
new stimulus must develop for thus it is best perceived and from
this insight into the nature of the change may be achieved.

In human beings it is usual for communications or expressions
indicating surprise to occur with these sudden flashes of conscious-
ness (INVOLVING INSIGHT). Few besides poker players, diplomats,
and facial paralytics can avoid these outward signs. This phenom-
enon of surprise has frequently been reported in connection with
psychological experiments, but has never been suggested as a criter-
ion of the onset of consciousness. It is, nevertheless, one of the surest
and most objective criteria there are. It indicates that some part of
the environment, which was interpreted to be of a certain nature,
at that moment is recognized to be different. Let us investigate a
few examples of this sort of behavior recorded in psychological
writings :

(a) In Chapter XI (pp. 264-265), mention is made of Jastrow and
West's research with the automatograph (a scientific Ouija board).
They found, among other things, that subjects involuntarily moved
their fingers and the board toward objects to which they were told
to attend. Also the fingers moved the board in time with ticking
sounds. They stated: 57 "The movements are sometimes unconscious
but always involuntary, there is often great surprise at the result."

() Sidis had each of his subjects guess what letters were shown
to him at such a great distance that they appeared to be merely
blurred dots (cf. p. 147). The subjects complained that they
would have just as much basis for guessing if they shut their eyes.
Sidis reported 58 that they were much surprised when they learned
after the experiment that they frequently had named the letters
correctly.

67 J. Jastrow and H. West, A study of involuntary movements, Amer. J. Psychol., 4,
1892, 407. By permission of the American Journal of Psychology.

68 B. Sidis, op. cit., 171.

THE GUARDING POINT AND SURPRISE 207

(c) In Chapter VI (pp. 156-157) Huntley's research 69 was con-
sidered, in which subjects judged their own "forms of expression"
in comparison with those of others, although they did not realize
that they were their own. When the subjects discovered that they
had been evaluating their own hands, their own handwriting, etc.,
they gave various exclamations of surprise. They were astonished
to find that the purpose of the experiment had been so different
from what they had thought it was.

(d) Stevens, discussing mathematics as a rational and deductive

system, wrote:

Regardless of how inventive mathematical discoveries may appear
to be, they contain nothing not already implicit in the fundamental
postulates of the system. The outcome of our symbol-juggling sur-
prises and delights us and fills us with the illusion of discovery,
simply because of the limitations of our minds. A man of sufficient
intellect would disdain the use of logic and mathematics, for he
would see at a glance all that his postulates and definitions implied.
He would be aware of all possible discoveries under the rules. The
rest of us, however, must continue to do our mathematics stepwise,
proceeding from one tautological transformation to the next, and
being surprised at the result.

Here to the ordinary mathematician, as to Huntley's subjects, the
psychological environment suddenly develops a different character
from what he had expected. He is surprised.

(e) In Chapter VI (p. 153) is reported the author's investiga-
tion in which subjects discriminated geometrical figures projected
on the back of a transparent mirror, when they did not know that
actual images were there and thought they were doing a clairvoyance
experiment. The same element of surprise was obvious when these
subjects, who had known nothing of the purpose of the research,
discovered that they had been receiving actual physical visual stimu-
lation, and, looking at the mirror again, saw the outlines that had

C9 C. W. Huntley, Judgments of self based upon records of expressive behavior, /. Abnorm.
and Soc. Psychol., 35, 1940, 398-427; cf. especially 401.

60 S. S. Stevens, Psychology and the science of science, PsyclioL Bull., 36, 1939, 238.
By permission of the Psychological Bulletin.

208 INSIGHTLESS UNCONSCIOUSNESS

been invisible before. 61 Subject A said: "I was positively amazed
when the set-up was explained to me." Subject B: "I was very sur-
prised when I saw it." And so on for each of the other subjects.

Observers watching the experiment were continually astonished
that these nai've subjects did not see the images at the higher voltages
of illumination, when it was perfectly obvious to them that the
images were present, because they knew of the actual physical stimu-
lation. Even an experienced subject who understood the set-up
before beginning his observing, after discussing the experiment with
other psychologists, declared : "I could not get that group to feel as
surprised as I about the effect of cues that refuse to be available to
introspection. Apparently my attitude is due to the fact that I was a
subject." His environment had been different from what he had
expected, and he felt surprise.

CONCLUSIONS

The "seat of consciousness" of the central nervous system is by
no means omniscient. It often has no contact with other parts of
the nervous system, let alone with the outside world. When no
immediate danger threatens, and all seems usual and customary,
lowered vigilance and inattention are the rule. That is the economy
of the body. Suddenly an impulse from elsewhere in the nervous
system or from the outside world through the sense receptors is
strong enough to pass the threshold to the "seat of consciousness."
Consciousness (ATTENDED) occurs and consciousness (INVOLVING
INSIGHT) often follows. Surprise or startle behavior of some sort is
the outward manifestation of the highest integrative center of the
nervous system getting up to date with events. The attention and
insight that accompany these outward manifestations increase the
organism's efficiency in dealing with novel situations.

It is important to recognize diat lower functional levels can tem-
porarily get as much out of control of the highest integrative center
as is the outside world. They may at times become princes of Seren-
dip and return from the quest with their treasure before the highest

61 J. G. Miller, Discrimination without awareness, Amcr. J. Psychol., 52, 1939, 574-5.

CONCLUSIONS 209

centers know that they have gone. Something of this sort occurs in
a large part of artistic creation and problem solving.

It is conceivable that much of this theory is fable, but there is one
fact: introspective evidence almost unanimously agrees that the
final products of our own "higher mental processes" are often as
unexpected to us as the morning headlines.

CHAPTER IX
FORGETFUL UNCONSCIOUSNESS

In its widest sense memory is the name for the influence of a per-
son's past upon his present or future thoughts and behavior. How
is the past represented in the present ? What are the determinants of
remembering and forgetting? Can the individual under any con-
ditions report everything that has happened in the past? Is his
behavior affected only by those parts of the past which he can report
in the present? These are the problems of unconsciousness (UN-
REMEMBERED).

It has often been suggested 1 that consciousness would be impos-
sible without memory, and many conditions commonly called
unconscious, in one sense or other, are to be explained by abnormal
function of memory. The drug scopolamine (which causes "twilight
sleep") seems not to affect the sensation and perception of pain and
other stimulation at the time, but memory of this stimulation does
not persist. Therefore it is effective as an "anesthetic." Whenever
memory does not last long enough to allow introspective report to
be made, all the subjective evidences of consciousness disappear.
Such immediate amnesia can be distinguished from anesthesia only
by objective, physiological criteria. When patients come to the hos-
pital after an automobile accident talking apparently sensibly but
five minutes later cannot remember what they have said; when
Janet's Irene (Case XIII of Chapter II, p. 63) forgets important
episodes in her life; when psychoanalytic patients are unable to re-
count embarrassing or shameful experiences in such cases uncon-
scious (UNREMEMBERED) mechanisms are commonly said to be in
operation. In the last century Solomons and Stein recognized 2 that
the unconsciousness involved in acts of automatism and in cases of

.g. f E. G. Boring, The Physical Dimensions of Consciousness, New York: Century,
1933, 223-5.

2 L. M. Solomons and G. Stein, Normal motor automatism, Psychol. Rev., 3, 1896, 500-1.

210

CRITERIA AND TYPES OF FORGETTING 211

dual personality cannot be distinguished introspectively from ab-
normal function of memory.

Ebbinghaus made the first significant experimental study of
memory 3 a few years after Azam had begun 4 to investigate it clin-
ically. These two streams, however, have rarely flowed together.
There are several reasons for this: (a) The serious amnesias found
in clinics are too dangerous to induce experimentally, even if they
could be so induced. () In the "correct" laboratory tradition the
chief experimental emphasis in studying memory has been on the
conditions in the environment which affect memory in "typical
human beings." Such research has usually evaded what is interesting
to the clinic, individual differences in what is remembered or for-
gotten and in motivations for forgetting, (c) Clinicians have realized
that practically anything learned under practically any circum-
stances may be forgotten if there are sufficiently sound reasons to
forget it. In the clinical picture of abnormalities of memory, deter-
minants varying from individual to individual far outweigh the
external, environmental determinants of memory. For these reasons
laboratory and clinical data on unconsciousness (UNREMEMBERED)
are disparate and difficult to correlate.

CRITERIA AND TYPES OF FORGETTING

There are three sorts of criteria which indicate that the past is
conscious (REMEMBERED) rather than unconscious (UNREMEMBERED).
(a) The first is dependent upon communicability if a person can
communicate his knowledge of a past incident, he remembers it.
This is the proof of memory most usually required. () One may^
be able to react to a situation with learned behavior and therefore
be remembering, and yet be unable to describe or communicate
what was learned. In Chapter I (pp. 40-41), Sapir's modification of
the communication criterion of consciousness was mentioned, and it
will be considered in more detail in Chapter XII. He suggested that,

8 H. Ebbinghaus, Memory (1885), trans. H. A. Ruger and C. E. Busscnius, New York:
Teachers College, Columbia University, 1913.
4 M. Azam, Periodical amnesia, /. New. and Ment. Dis., 3, 1876, 584-612.

212 FORGETFUL UNCONSCIOUSNESS

if an individual's behavior is obviously determined by learned cul-
tural patterns but he apparently has no knowledge that they exist
and cannot describe what they are, then this is an example of uncon-
scious (INCOMMUNICABLE) behavior. It is, on the other hand, con-
scious (REMEMBERING) behavior, (c) Conditioned responses repre-
sent memory of something which has been learned. A person may
be unconscious (UNABLE TO COMMUNICATE) that conditioned re-
sponses exist even though they can be elicited by the proper stimula-
tion. Sapir's cultural patterns may be explainable by such condition-
ing. The usual basis for judging whether someone remembers
something, however, is by his communication, especially speech, for
many things that are learned, like the Gettysburg address, can be
conveyed verbally but not acted out or demonstrated by conditioned
response.

Three types of unconsciousness (UNREMEMBERING), amnesias,
have been distinguished by Sears: 5 (a) amnesias of impression,
which are really pseudo-amnesias, for the material supposed to be
forgotten was never perceived or properly interpreted; () amnesias
of retention, in which the material was impressed and then lost
irrecoverably; and (c) amnesias of reproduction, in which the mate-
rial might be remembered under specific conditions, but cannot be
produced at the time under consideration.

Each of these sorts of amnesia deserves consideration in turn.

AMNESIAS OF IMPRESSION

Amnesias of impression are not unconscious in the sense of
UNREMEMBERED, but rather of UNSENSED. In dealing with any apparent
amnesia, the first step must be to determine whether it is a pseudo-
amnesia of this sort, or whether an adequate impression was really
received by the patient. Already reference has been made (p. 30)
to Sears's list of acceptable sorts of evidence that a person has re-
ceived an adequate impression: 6

5 R. R. Scars, Functional abnormalities of memory with special reference to amnesia,
Psychol. Bull., 33, 1936, 235-6.

232. By permission of the Psychological Bulletin.

AMNESIAS OF IMPRESSION 213

(a) The fact of immediate recall of the experience before amnesia
develops (as in the amnesias of murderers ... or victims of dual
personality); (b) eventual recall spontaneously or by aid of special
methods (as with hypnosis, distraction, chloroform, emotional shock,
or free association); and (c) agreement by competent observers that
the external conditions were sufficient to provide an impression. The
last criterion may be easily abused; perception depends on internal
conditions as well as external and no observer is competent to judge
the former as adequate.

Frequently, as in football games, a physical accident to a person
has been succeeded by amnesia for events occurring during a certain
period immediately before the trauma. Hess reported 7 three similar
cases. He called attention to the fact that in many cases in which
trauma had been associated with amnesia, the patients had been
exercising more or less severely or drinking. He suggested that in
such activity one becomes drowsy and the perceptions are dimin-
ished. Under these circumstances, he believed, there would have
been no recollection of the period even if the injury had not occurred.
He argued, therefore, that such cases often are amnesias of impres-
sion. This is interesting theory, but only one of his cases bears it out
at all convincingly. This patient was a drunkard of thirty-six who
attempted twice during drinking bouts to hang himself. After the
second trial he was cut down and had no recollection of the attempt
or of immediately preceding events.

Theoretically it might be expected that strong emotion could
distract attention so that impressions which one would normally get
would not be received. Actually all amnesias reported which might
be explained this way have disappeared either spontaneously or as
a result of the use of techniques which improve recall, like hypnosis^
or free association. 8

Now that forgetting due to repression bulks so large in psycho-
therapy, every case of apparent forgetting must be carefully checked
to eliminate the possibility that, like Bobby Burns's lady who had
the louse on her hat in church, the patient did not adequately per-

7 E. Hess, Retrograde Amnesic nach Strangulationsversuch und nach Kopftrauma,
Honats. f. Psychmt. . NeuroL, 15, 1904, 241-57.
8 Cf. R. R. Scars, op. at., 235.

214 FORGETFUL UNCONSCIOUSNESS

ceive what he was supposed to have forgotten, and so acted in
ignorance of it. Freud set a good example, not always followed by
psychoanalysts and psychiatrists, when he recognized 9 that errors
originating from repression must be carefully distinguished from
those actually based upon ignorance.

AMNESIAS OF RETENTION

Are there amnesias in which something once learned or expe-
rienced not only is, under the conditions of the moment, incapable
of being reproduced, but is entirely lost by the organism? If con-
ditioning is evidence of memory, the answer is most likely "No."
Pavlov found 10 that, if a conditioned response is formed and then,
as he says, "completely extinguished," so that the proper stimulus
will no longer elicit it, it will after a certain interval spontaneously
recover its full strength. Using communication as a criterion of the
presence of memory, however, Storring has reported 11 that amnesia
in which experience is immediately forgotten as it occurs and is not
recoverable may result from gas poisoning, which presumably
involves organic brain damage. On the other hand, Jones, employ-
ing the same criterion, has stated almost unequivocally 12 that no
forgetting is amnesia of retention but all is amnesia of reproduc-
tion. It is indeed remarkable how long a thing may be apparently
forgotten and then suddenly become conscious (REMEMBERED) again.

Rochon-Duvigneaud related 13 how once, leafing through a book,
he came upon a picture of some flowers known as "mirror of
Venus," and was suddenly seized with intense emotion. Over a
period of a few days he repeatedly looked at this picture, with the

9 S. Freud, The Basic Writings of Sigmund Freud, cd. A. A. Brill, New York: Random
House, 1938 (Psychopathology of Everyday Life), 143.

10 1. P. Pavlov, Conditioned Reflexes, ed. G. V. Anrep, Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1927, 58.

11 G. E. Storring, Uber den ersten reinen Fall eincs Menschen mit volligem, isohertem
Verlust dcr Merkfahigkcit, Arch, f, ges. PsychoL, 81, 1931, 257-384.

12 E. Jones, Remarks on a case of complete auto-psychic amnesia, /. Abnorm. PsychoL ,
4, 1909, 233-5; also E. Jones, Papers on Psycho-Analysis, London: Bailhere, Tmdall and
Cox, 1918, 104-20.

13 A. Rochon-Duvigneaud, Emotion provoquce par un souvenir inconscient, /. de
PsychoL, 33, 1936, 283-4.

AMNESIAS OF REPRODUCTION 215

same result, which he could not explain at all. Several days later an
image came to his mind of fields of mirrors of Venus and other
flowers near a place where he had spent vacations as a child. This
image, however, was of fields in June, and he believed he had never
been there at that time of year. Finally he remembered that he had
stayed there the summer of the Franco-Prussian War, many years
before, because events had altered his usual schedule. At that time
he had seen this view of fields in bloom. There was apparently
nothing traumatic about the memory, yet more than sixty years
later the picture had this effect. He could not understand how a
long-latent memory could be so provocative.

It has been said that Freud believed that there are no amnesias of
retention, that all experiences of the past are indestructible and
potentially recoverable. Such was not his position. 14 He did, how-
ever, emphasize strongly the importance of long-latent memories
like Rochon-Duvigneaud's, and he believed 15 that whenever mate-
rial becomes connected with some unconscious (PSYCHOANALYTIC
MEANING) process it cannot pass from the organism unless that
process is first brought to consciousness by psychoanalysis, hypnosis,
or some other special technique. At present, except for the evidence
mentioned in the preceding paragraphs, there are no conclusive facts
known which could serve as grounds for deciding whether there
are amnesias of retention. 16 Most true cases of forgetting are prob-
ably amnesias of reproduction though some so interpreted may be
amnesias of retention.

AMNESIAS OF REPRODUCTION

In amnesias of reproduction the memories can conceivably be
brought back at another time, either spontaneously or by hypnosis,
free association, and so forth, but are not at present available. Or,
for numerous reasons, a person may deny remembering something
even though his actions are demonstrably affected by it. There are

14 Cf. S. Freud, op. cit. (Psychopathology of Everyday Life), 40.

15 Ibid. (The Interpretation of Dreams), 518.

16 Cf. K. Koffka, Principles of Gestalt Psychology, New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1935,
523-5.

216 FORGETFUL UNCONSCIOUSNESS

said to be at least six different sorts of reproductive amnesias, which
will be considered in order: "simple forgetting," alterative forget-
ting, retroactive inhibition, dissociation, suppression, and repression.

1. "SIMPLE FORGETTING"

When Ebbinghaus began the experimental investigation of learn-
ing and remembering, his method of memorizing nonsense syllables
enabled him to determine a curve of forgetting. 17 During the first
few hours after learning the syllables, forgetting was rapid and a
large percentage of the material was forgotten, but thereafter for-
getting was progressively slower. These results showed forgetting
to be a function of the amount of time which had passed. It was
natural that the traditional psychology should conclude that time
wears away the memory traces in the brain, just as the elements
wear away the rocks. Freud, even when promulgating his doctrine
of repression, believed 18 also in this "simple forgetting" of academic
psychology. Research mentioned throughout the rest of this chapter
requires that so many provisos be added to the statement that forget-
ting results from passage of time that it is practically nullified.

The first proviso concerns the fact that, of two things which hap-
pened at the same time, one may be distinctly remembered and the
other entirely forgotten. The traditional explanation of this fact has
been that those events which leave the greatest impression at the
time they occur will be longest remembered. It has been determined
by repeated experiment 10 that, other things being equal, the first,
the most recent, most frequently repeated, or most intense stimuli
of a series will be longer remembered than the others. Laboratory
psychology is beginning to recognize what the clinic has known all
along, that the most important phrase in this statement is "other
things being equal."

Primacy, recency, frequency, intensity any of these characteristics
makes a stimulus unlike other stimuli and will attract attention to

17 H. Ebbinghaus, op. cit., 62-80.

18 S. Freud, op. cit. (Psychopathology of Everyday Life), 40.

19 E.g., A. Jersild, Primacy, recency, frequency, and vividness, /. Exper. Psychol., 12,
1929, 58-70.

ALTERATIVE FORGETTING 217

it, as was shown in Chapter VII (pp. 173-174). In line with the hy-
pothesis of neural vigilance it may be suggested that the vigilance
accompanying attentive consciousness imparts some special potency
to the memory trace that makes it disappear less readily. Substan-
tiating this suggestion is the work of von Restorflf, who measured 20
the rate of forgetting of homogeneous and heterogeneous nonsense
syllables. She discovered that the heterogeneous were more readily
remembered. She also found that an object unlike those surrounding
it is better remembered than one in homogeneous surroundings.

It is now generally recognized that the most important deter-
minants of memory are the intraorganismic needs and interests of
the individual. These selectively increase the effectiveness of certain
of the sensations reaching the organism. An apple in a centerpiece
on the dining room table is of slight interest to a young boy until he
is hungry. Then, when he sees it, it is much more attention-com-
pelling because it can satisfy his hunger. In the future, even if he
does not spoil the symmetry of his mother's centerpiece by eating
forbidden fruit, he will be more likely to remember that it was
there. Forgetting is not simple, and it is only secondarily dependent
upon time's passage. It must be explained primarily in terms of
intraorganismic conditions, and this the most satisfactory theories
of unconscious (UNREMEMBERED) processes do.

2. ALTERATIVE FORGETTING

When one is unconscious (UNAWARE OF DISCRIMINATION) of things
which he is capable of remembering, where are they? Only the
most metaphysical will not locate them somewhere in the nervous
system. A favorite pastime of psychologists has been to give names
to these neural residues. They have been called, among other things,
engrams, 21 neurograms? 2 neural schemata?* mnemic pcrsistcnts?*

20 H. v. Restorff, Uber die Wirkung von Bcreichsbildungen im Spurenfeld, Psychol.
Forsch., 1 8, 1933, 299-342.

21 R. Semon, The Mneme, trans. L. Simon, New York: Macmillan, 1921, 24.

22 M. Prince, The Unconscious, New York: Macmillan, 1929, 2nd ed., 109-46.

23 H. Head and G. Holmes, Sensory disturbances from cerebral lesions, Brain, 34, 1911,
186-9.

24 C. D. Broad, The Hind and Its Place in Nature, London: Kegan Paul, Trench,
Trubner, 1925, 359-60.

218 FORGETFUL UNCONSCIOUSNESS

imagined processes?* and traces The last word is now the most
frequently used.

Traces are not yet accessible to direct observation, and so the term
is an abstract noun representing a conclusion derived from many
sorts of observations. First of all it seems certain that a trace is usually
not located in one neurone or at any specific neural junction. Vari-
ous researches, especially those of Lashley with rats, 27 indicate that
all parts of the cortex are equipotential for certain sorts of memory
and learning; other less complicated tasks seem to be more localized.
It is most unlikely that a war veteran could have a hundred neurones
extirpated and live from that moment in blissful amnesia of his
experiences in battle. His memories are too widely distributed
possibly over the whole cortex.

The most cogent interpretation of the trace has been derived from
study of the so-called time-error. The negative time-error is seen
when two weights, A and 5, are successively compared, B being
heavier than A but sufficiently like it so that the difference cannot
always be recognized. If A is presented before 5, more right judg-
ments will be made than if the order is reversed. Subjectively the
difference between the two in the first sequence will appear greater
than in the second. The theory of traces states 28 that, when two
similar stimuli are compared successively, a potential gradient exists
between the new excitation from the second stimulus and the trace
from the preceding one. The judgment of the difference between
the two is based on this potential gradient. If this is true, the ac-
curacy of judgment depends upon whether the trace remains the
same or undergoes a change. If the two successive stimuli were
equal, and if the trace from the first remained the same until the
second appeared, a majority of equal judgments would be expected,
or at least neither difference would preponderate. If, however, the

25 J. T. MacCurdy, Common Principles in Psychology and Physiology, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1928, 14.
20 E.g., K. KofTka, op. cit., 423-528.

27 K. S. Lashley, Brain Mechanisms and Intelligence t Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1929.

28 Cf. K. Koffka, op. cit., 467.

ALTERATIVE FORGETTING 219

trace diminished during that interval, then a majority of over-
estimations of the second stimulus would be expected. On the basis
of this interpretation it can be hypothesized that the negative time-
error shows that traces diminish with time.

This hypothesis is susceptible of experimental confirmation, if it
can be demonstrated that the time-error increases as the interval
lengthens. Kohler used 29 clicking sounds as stimuli. He found that,
for short intervals, the second of two equal clicks was more often
called softer but that, as the periods between clicks became longer,
the second stimulus was more often considered the more intense.
The cause for the first, positive time-error has not been experimen-
tally determined, so we shall consider only the longer-lasting negative
time-error. Two possible explanations of the negative time-error
can be given:* (a) Metabolic processes gradually destroy traces so
that the trace of the first stimulus is oJ: lesser magnitude than the
second stimulus. This is "simple forgetting" in neurophysiological
terms. Or (b) traces in proximity become assimilated with one
another. That is, in the case of the clicks, the trace of the first click
merges with the trace corresponding to the period of lack of stimula-
tion, the background, and so is less than the second stimulus.

Lauenstein proceeded 31 to subject these alternatives to an experi-
mental decision. His subjects compared successively two stimuli,
for example, two successive light intensities appearing on a dark
background at one time and two on a brightly illuminated back-
ground at another. In acoustic experiments they compared tones
against background tones of the same frequency, sometimes lower
and at other times higher in intensity than the critical tones being
compared. In both sensory modalities Lauenstein found a positivg
time-error for short intervals, a negative time-error increasing with
the length of the interval for tones compared against less intense
backgrounds, and a positive one for tones against stronger back-

29 W. Kohler, Zur Thcorie des Sukzcssivvcrglcichs und der Zcitfehlcr, Psychol. Forsch.,
4, 1923, 115-75-

30 Cf. O. Lauenstein, Ansatz zu einer physiologischen Theorie des Vcrgleichs und der
Zeitfehlcr, Psychol. Forsch., 17, 1932, 152.

130-77.

220 FORGETFUL UNCONSCIOUSNESS

grounds. This difference in the nature of the time-error depends
upon the background, becoming more intense if the background
has a higher intensity and diminishing if the background is less
intense.

The important fact in these findings concerning unconscious
(UNREMEMBERED) processes is that traces do not wear away with
time, but change their nature by entering into functional relation-
ships with other traces. Forgetting is alterative.

Further illustration of the active, integrating nature of traces is
the discovery of Kohler 32 that, when the basic experiment on the
time-error was continued over several days, the preponderance of
negative time-error over positive diminished and disappeared, so that
finally the positive time-error was preponderant. This result indi-
cates that smaller trace systems often do not remain in watertight
compartments but may form larger, organized systems which have
definite influence upon newly formed traces. This organizing gives
the appearance of being similar to the mechanism of serendipity, the
unconscious (NOT INVOLVING INSIGHT and INCOMMUNICABLE) creativ-
ity examined in Chapter VIII.

The central tendency of judgments proves another fact about the
kinematics of traces. Lauenstein reported 33 findings bearing upon
this tendency, but earlier work of Hollingworth's 34 illustrates the
mechanism better and makes for simpler exposition because it is
less abstruse. He studied the indifference point, that stimulus within
a graded series which is reproduced or recognized correctly while
lesser stimuli are overestimated and larger ones underestimated. In
one procedure the subject was shown for five seconds a square, the
size varying from one trial to another, and five seconds later he
chose from his memory of the first square one of the same size from
thirty squares of different dimensions simultaneously presented. The
sizes of small stimuli were often overestimated and large stimuli
were often underestimated. Hollingworth found that the indiffer-

32 W. Kohler, op. cit., 159-60.

33 O. Lauenstein, op. cit., 170-7.

34 H. L. Hollingworth, The central tendency of judgment, /. Philos., Psychol. and Set.
Methods, 7, 1910, 461-9.

ALTERATIVE FORGETTING 221

ence point was not absolute, but depended upon the range employed.
In a graded series of squares of five to seven centimeters on a side,
a five-centimeter square might be overestimated, but it would be
likely to be underestimated in a series of three to five centimeters.
This work has been interpreted 33 to prove that the trace system in
existence influences each new trace as it is formed and that there is
a sort of averaging of traces within the system.

A descriptive knowledge of the sort of changes which traces un-
dergo in time has been experimentally established, (a) Wulf inves-
tigated 36 how subjects redraw designs which they have been shown.
This experimentation was repeated with slight variations by All-
port 37 and Perkins, 38 who nevertheless adhered closely to Wulf s
technique and achieved much the same results. 39 In general, repro-
ductions were requested immediately after the subjects had seen the
designs, and then at different intervals of days, weeks, and months
thereafter. The variations in reproduction of the designs over these
periods, which were taken to represent changes in the traces, were
then studied. The figures were found to undergo three sorts of
changes: normalizing, emphasizing (or pointing), and autonomous
changes. Normalizing is the passing of a reproduction through vari-
ous changes toward resemblance of a familiar form. Pointing or
emphasizing is the successive exaggeration of some feature of the
pattern which attracts the attention of the observer. The autonomous
changes are determined by the nature of the figure itself, and are
such processes as the smoothing out of sharp angles or the evolving
of symmetry in the figure. The explanation advanced for these
alterations in memory may be what Freud referred to 40 as "coa-

35 K. Koffka, op. cit., 474-5.

86 F. Wulf, tJbcr die Veranderung von Vorstcllungen (Gedachtnis und Gestalt), Psychol.
Forsch., i, 1922, 333-73-

37 G. W. Allport, Change and decay in the visual memory image, Brii. f. Psychol., 21,
1930, 133-48.

38 F. T. Perkins, Symmetry in visual recall, Amer. J. Psychol., 44, 1932, 473-90.

39 The following researches are earlier studies of aspects of this general problem:
L. Hempstead, The perception of visual form, Amer. /. Psychol., 12, 1901, 185-92;
F. Kuhlmann, On the analysis of the memory consciousness, Psychol. Rev., 13, 1906, 316-48.

40 S. Freud, op. cit. (Psychopathology of Everyday Life), 174-5.

222 FORGETFUL UNCONSCIOUSNESS

densation and distortion," the interactions between traces which
cause modification in all of them.

() Gibson performed 41 a somewhat different experiment from
the preceding researches, exposing two series of fourteen geometric
figures each before his subjects, each figure being shown for two
seconds. At the end of a series the subjects were instructed to draw
as many figures as they could remember. Then the exposure was
repeated, and a second reproduction made. Alterations in the figures
occurred in reproduction which made the figures more like the
objects which the subjects thought the designs resembled. The
reproduction was also often made to fit a verbal analysis of the
figure made during the perception of the figure.

(c) The effect of language on such reproduction is demonstrated
in a more enlightening manner in work by Carmichael, Hogan,
and Walker. 42 A series of twelve relatively ambiguous designs was
shown to three groups of subjects in an exposure apparatus, and
they were told they would be asked to draw them later. Each design
somewhat resembled two different objects. Group A was told that
the design resembled one of these objects, and Group B was told
that it resembled the other. Group C was shown the designs with-
out any comment. Afterward reproductions were made from mem-
ory. This procedure was repeated until the subject could make a
recognizable representation of each of the twelve designs. The
experimenters divided the reproductions into five groups according
to the degree of resemblance to the original drawings, and those
having the least resemblance were analyzed as indicating most
clearly the factors producing discrepancies. About three quarters of
the drawings of Groups A and B least resembling the design were
more similar to the objects named than were the stimulus figures to
which the name had been applied. Less than half of the drawings
of the control Group C were similar to objects named for Groups A

41 J. J. Gibson, The reproduction of visually perceived forms, /. Exper. Psychol., 12,
1929, J -39.

42 L. Carmichael, H. P. Hogan, and A. A. Walker, An experimental study of the effect
of language on the reproduction of visually perceived form, /. Exper. Psychol., 15, 1932,
73-86.

ALTERATIVE FORGETTING 223

or B. This result may be explained by saying that the traces of cer-
tain of the perceived designs had become interrelated with traces
from the names suggested for the designs, and that this intermin-
gling altered the reproduction.

(d) The most extensive experimentation in this line is the excel-
lent work of Bartlett. 43 In one study he had some subjects read short
passages and then they were asked to reproduce the contents from
memory repeatedly at intervals of increasing length. The most
immediate reproduction was given fifteen minutes after the first
reading, and for one subject the last was as long as six and one-half
years later. The form and style of the first, most immediate repro-
duction in general persisted in succeeding reproductions, but there
was a progressive tendency to simplify, to omit details, and to trans-
form them into more familiar and convenient form. Introspective
report showed that the subjects were often unconscious (UNABLE TO
COMMUNICATE) of the condensation that was going on. Bartlett's
results show that as time passes details are forgotten, but they are
not merely worn away they are altered and reorganized, and often
the subject does not recognize that this alteration is occurring.
Memory is primarily reconstructive and not merely reduplicative.
Bartlett explained 44 his theory in terms of Head's "neural schemata,"
but he believed that these schemata are not necessarily conscious, as
Head seemed to hold. He was skeptical of the concept of trace
because he thought that a trace as generally understood remained
passively discreet and did not combine with other traces. His doc-
trine, however, is closely allied to the theory of actively organizing
traces outlined in this chapter.

The Gestalt school believes that "tensions" are set up between
traces, and that they operate to keep some traces unconscious (UN-
REMEMBERED and INCOMMUNICABLE) and to force others to conscious-
ness, (a) The first work indicating that there are such tensions was
AalPs, 45 which demonstrated the effect upon recall of the expecta-

43 F. C. Bartlett, Remembering, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1932.

**lbid., 197-214.

45 A. Aall, Ein ncues Gedachtnisgesetz?, Ztschr. /. Psychol., 66, 1913, 1-50.

224 FORGETFUL UNCONSCIOUSNESS

tions of the learner. One group of subjects was told that they would
be tested the next day on what they had learned, and the other
group was told that the test would be made at an indefinitely later
time. The first subjects, however, instead of being examined the
next day were told that circumstances were such that the test could
not be carried out then as arranged. Both groups were then exam-
ined either four or eight weeks later. The material was better re-
membered when it was learned with the expectation of long-term
retention rather than with the expectation of remembering it only
until the next day. The dissimilarities in expectation had served to
organize traces differently.

(b) It is said that Haydn, a sound and late sleeper, could be easily
roused from bed by the playing of an unresolved chord downstairs.
Soon the composer would be forced by the unrelieved tension so
set up to come down and complete the unfinished sequence. Zeigar-
nik has demonstrated 46 that similar tensions cause unfinished tasks
to be remembered better. She gave her subjects a number of tasks
to perform, such as writing out a poem, molding animals from
plasticene, drawing a vase and flowers, "and solving mathematical
and other kinds of problems. She allowed them to complete some
of the tasks, but interrupted them in the midst of others. Later the
subjects were asked to recount the assorted tasks which they had
done. The unfinished problems were much better remembered. By
control experiments Zeigarnik proved that this remembering could
not be explained in any other way, either by the emotional shock
involved in interrupting the task, or by AalFs effect, the expectation
that the incomplete problem was to be resumed later. She therefore
accepted the alternative explanation of her findings, that, when the
task is presented, a tension is set up which drives toward the com-
pletion of the act and which will not be dissipated until this is
achieved. The unrelieved tension in the interrupted act is trans-
ferred to the trace, causing it to be better remembered than a trace

46 B. Zeigarnik, Das Behaltcn crlcdigter und uncrlcdigter Handlungen, Psychol. Forsch.,
9, 1927, 1-85.

RETROACTIVE INHIBITION 225

without such a tension. The Zeigarnik effect has been repeatedly
confirmed by others. 47

3. RETROACTIVE INHIBITION

If "simple forgetting" needed a coup de grace, it was provided by
the incontrovertible clinical and experimental proof that succeeding
events can inhibit previous events, causing them to be forgotten.
Clinical evidence of this retroactive inhibition 48 is the amnesia for
past events which has from time to time been reported as the result
of emotional shock. Most of these cases show spontaneous recovery
within a few hours. Under laboratory conditions experimental
efforts to cause retroactive inhibition by emotional reactions induced
by electric shocks and other unpleasant stimuli 49 have resulted
equivocally, the general impression being that it can be done. It
seems certain, though, that unpleasant feelings caused by various
odors can produce retroactive forgetting/'

(a) The classic work on retroactive inhibition is that of Jenkins
and Dallenbach. 51 Their subjects learned series of ten nonsense
syllables. Ability to recall these was tested one, two, four, and eight
hours later. Sometimes the subjects slept during these periods, and
other times they remained awake. On the average more than twice
as many syllables were reproduced after intervals of sleep as after
waking periods. The superiority of intervals of sleep for recall be-
came more pronounced as the length of the intervals increased.
The conclusion by the experimenters who made these findings was 52
that forgetting is not caused by decay of traces and their associations
so much as by interference of new impressions with the old traces.

47 E.g., M. R. Harrowcr, Organization in higher mental processes, PsychoL Forsch., 17,
1933, 92-102.

48 R. R. Scars, op. cit., 236-7. v

49 L. M. Harden, The effect of emotional reactions upon retention, /. Gen. Psychol.,
3, 1930, 197-221; also J. A. McGeoch, The influence of four different interpolated activities
upon retention, /. Expcr. Psychol. , 14, 1931, 400-13; and M. M. White, Influence of an
interpolated electric shock upon recall, /. Exper. Psychol., 15, 1932, 752-7.

50 C/. J. D. Frank and E. J. Ludvigh, The retroactive effect of pleasant and unpleasant
odors on learning, Amer. /. Psychol., 43, 1931, 102-8.

61 J. G. Jenkins and K. M. Dallenbach, Oblivescencc during sleep and waking, Amer. J.
PsychoL, 35, 1924, 605-12.

62 Ibid., 612.

226 FORGETFUL UNCONSCIOUSNESS

The essential aspects of this research have been confirmed by other
work. 53

() Later events not only can inhibit reproduction of traces but
also can alter the tensions which cause these traces to be remem-
bered. Zeigarnik demonstrated, 54 for instance, that the tensions
which cause unfinished tasks to be preferentially remembered are
lessened by intervening occurrences. For eight subjects, the ratio of
the number of incomplete tasks to completed tasks remembered
immediately after the experiment was about two to one. Later they
were given another series of tasks, half completed and half not, and
then were asked to name the tasks after the lapse of a day. Under
these conditions, the ratio of incomplete to completed tasks remem-
bered was about nine to eight. That this lowering of the ratio was
not a result of the mere passage of time, but was caused by inter-
ference from events that occurred in that time, was proved by
Zeigarnik in another experiment in which six subjects, after a much
shorter lapse of time only ten to thirty minutes which was, how-
ever, filled with emotional experiences unrelated to the tasks just
done, actually remembered more completed than incomplete tasks,
in the ratio of about three to two.

Experimental psychology today has shown that most, if not all,
unconsciousness (UNREMEMBERED) results from active rather than
passive processes. Traces are inhibited from reproduction by stimuli
entering the nervous system. Under usual circumstances, without this
intervening stimulation forgetting would not occur. The laboratory
tradition has thus eschewed its past doctrines of "simple forgetting"
and approached even closer to the clinical notion of repression.
Though it is true that active conflict with the succeeding impres-
sions forces earlier learned material out of consciousness (REMEM-
BERED), retroactive inhibition as envisioned by laboratory psycholo-
gists differs in important ways from repression. The content and
significance to the personality of what is inhibited retroactively do

83 E. B. Van Ormcr, Retention after intervals of sleep and of waking, Arch, of Psychol.,
21, 1932, No. 137. Certain other studies may also be confirmatory; cf., e.g., A. Dahl, tJber
cin Einfluss des Schlafens auf das Wiedererkennen, Psychol. Forsch., n, 1928, 290-301

64 B. Zeigarnik, op. cit., 71-7.

DISSOCIATION 227

not affect the mechanism, but they are the essential determinants
of what is repressed. Retroactive inhibition and repression are sim-
ilar, however, in the significant feature of being active processes..

4. DISSOCIATION

All theories of forgetting conceived by case study and incubated
in the clinic state that, when recall is not possible, it is because the
memories do not dovetail with some drive, need, sentiment, or in-
stinct of the organism. The two most outstanding of these theories,
dissociation and repression, differ in their emphases, but are not
necessarily conflicting. They have been used to explain different
sorts of cases. It was stated in Chapter VII (p. 181) that dissocia-
tion is a doctrine of levels of attention one process goes on at the
focus, the other at the periphery. It was also shown that human
beings can do two or more things at once, each independent of the
other, and often not interconnected by memory. This is the fact of
dissociation. The French school of psychology which developed the
concept of dissociation found these two levels markedly present in
hypnosis and hysteria. It was not particularly concerned with ex-
plaining why there are two levels, as are psychoanalysts in repres-
sion theory. Hypnosis was interpreted by the French school as a kind
of dissociation in which the attention of the subject is focused so
sharply upon the hypnotist that the rest of the world is temporarily
dissociated; after the trance this relationship with the hypnotist is
often forgotten because it was on a different plane from the ordinary
life to which the subject returns. Hysteria also has been explained
as a two-level phenomenon. Janet's case of Irene (Case XIII ofr
Chapter II, p. 63), who showed alternation between prostration
at her mother's death and disregard of it, with mutual amnesias
between the two states, has served as a keystone supporting his
theory. This case is sufficiently remarkable to justify a careful elu-
cidation, and the theory of dissociation fits it well, but it is not an
eminently satisfactory model for other kinds of amnesias.

Prince has reported several cases involving amnesia which easily

228 FORGETFUL UNCONSCIOUSNESS

fit the model, and on the basis of them he has developed 55 a more
adequate theory of dissociation than Janet's. It is more useful because
it does not merely state that there is more than one functional level
and stop there, but proceeds to explain the dynamics which give rise
to this separation of levels. In so doing it approaches close to the
Freudian doctrine of repression. The dynamic factor in Prince's
explanation of dissociation is instinct, innate in the organism and
innately allied with its own characteristic emotions and sentiments.
If two instincts are aroused at the same time, Prince believed that
the less forceful will be inhibited by the stronger and repressed.
Sentiments are ideas, from his point of view, and those allied with
the repressed instinct become subconscious but they retain their
existence as neurograms and so carry on in the personality a dis-
sociated, unconscious (INCOMMUNICABLE) activity. They may affect
the conscious personality, causing neurotic symptoms like amnesias,
but the patient does not recognize that the forgetting differs from
other kinds, because the conflict of instincts is unconscious (IN-
COMMUNICABLE) .

If the instincts allied with one group of sentiments are in strong
enough conflict with other instincts, Prince believed that that group
of sentiments may shift from unconsciousness (INCOMMUNICABLE)
to coconsciousness. His famous case of Miss Beauchamp (Case XIV
of Chapter II, pp. 64-65) is an example of what he considered to be
such a shift. Prince never made a careful ostensive definition of the
word personality^ and without such a definition it is really impos-
sible to distinguish multiple personalities from multiple types of
behavior, sometimes conscious and sometimes unconscious (INCOM-
MUNICABLE or UNREMEMBERED), in a single personality.

Prince's belief that two or more streams of personality may go
on together, one conscious and the rest coconscious, would not be
tenable if it could be shown that two such processes, one conscious
and the other unconscious (INCOMMUNICABLE), cannot be carried
on independently and at the same time. A research by Messer-

85 M. Prince, op. ctt., 446-87 and 508-17.

DISSOCIATION 229

schmidt 56 was devoted to this question. She determined the normal
rates at which her subjects did serial addition and read aloud. Then
she gave a hypnotic suggestion that, when she spoke numbers to
them after the trance was over, they would begin serial addition
with those numbers and make a written record of the results. The
subjects were also given the suggestion that they would not realize
they were doing this automatic writing. After the hypnotic trance
was over, the subjects' arms were put through a screen and they
were given pencil and paper on the other side of the screen a set-up
for automatic writing. Then they began to read aloud and to do
serial addition of the numbers given them. The rates of the reading
and probably also of the adding suffered by mutual conflict between
the activities, and the subjects, unconscious (UNABLE TO COMMUNI-
CATE) of their addition, apologized for their slow and stumbling
reading. Messerschmidt concluded that there is no true functional in-
dependence between conscious and unconscious (INCOMMUNICABLE)
acts, and that Prince's doctrine of dissociated coconscious personality
is hence open to question.

In reply Prince could say that Messerschmidt's subjects were not
carrying on simultaneous conscious and coconscious activities result-
ing from conflict of instincts but, rather, conscious and unconscious
(INCOMMUNICABLE) processes resulting from posthypnotic sugges-
tion. He could insist with reason that the experimental situation was
not comparable to the events of real life which give rise to multiple
personalities. His coconsciousness, he might say, arises only under
great stress, and he could point to the evidence reviewed in Chapter
VII (pp. 165-168), which shows that two independent acts may be
carried on, and even attended to, at the same time if there is suffi-
cient necessity for it. If Messerschmidt's subjects had had as many
conflicts of instinct as Miss Beauchamp, Prince could conclude,
they too would have had multiple personalities which were inde-
pendent and did not interfere with each other.

Even in its most defensible form, dissociation does not convinc-

50 R. Mcsscrschmidt, A quantitative investigation of the alleged independent operation
of conscious and subconscious processes, /. Abnorm. and Soc. PsychoL, 22, 1927, 325-40.

230 FbRGETFUL UNCONSCIOUSNESS

ingly and completely explain amnesias and unconscious (UNREMEM-
BERED) behavior. The dissociated levels are said to be levels of atten-
tion, but what fact of attention leads us to believe that the margin is
entirely forgotten when the focus is attended to? All the evidence
seems to show that the periphery is always remembered, and that
any change there immediately demands attention. Dissociative in-
attention, unless it operates together with other mechanisms, cannot
satisfactorily explain unconsciousness (UNREMEMBERED).

5. SUPPRESSION

When a memory is said to be suppressed or repressed, no one
means that it has been pushed to the margin of attention. According
to the doctrines of suppression and repression unconsciousness
(UNATTENDED) is not the same thing as unconsciousness (INCOM-
MUNICABLE or UNREMEMBERED). In that fact lies their superiority
over the theory of dissociation as explanations of forgetting. Objec-
tively suppression and repression are the same lack of reproduction
of something that was once conscious. Objectively, therefore, sup-
pressed memories are unconscious (UNREMEMBERED). The distinction
between them is entirely dependent upon subjective report. If we
learn from his introspections that an individual is conscious (AWARE
OF DISCRIMINATION) of a memory but is trying to keep it out of the
focus of his attention or is merely unwilling to talk about it, then
it is suppressed, but it is not forgotten. It is, however, unconscious
(UNATTENDED or INCOMMUNICABLE).

When one of Al Capone's henchmen was on the witness stand,
the prosecutor would often be exasperated to find that he had ap-
parently forgotten practically everything he ever knew, including
half a dozen of his own names. Under other conditions he might
easily have remembered all that the state would have liked to learn.
The distinction between suppression and repression is subject to all
the uncertainties of introspective evidence which will be discussed
in Chapter XII. If a person is simply not attending to a memory
or will not communicate it, there is no available proof that he has

SUPPRESSION 231

not forgotten it. Such suppression is usually indistinguishable from
forgetting.

It was concluded, in Chapter V (pp. 118-119), that hypnotic sub-
jects are unconscious usually in the sense of UNABLE TO COMMUNICATE
or UNATTENDING, rather than UNAWARE OF DISCRIMINATION. In other
words, hypnotic amnesia is frequently suppression. In the light of
this fact an important experiment by Luria 57 is of interest here.

In all his extensive research Luria's method was to give a series
of words to which the subject was to respond with the first word he
thought of. The reaction time was taken. The subject's hands were
on rubber tambours, and he was instructed not to move the left
hand, but to press the right one every time he gave a verbal response.
Luria had proved in earlier research that stimulus words with emo-
tional connotations cause unusually strong depression of the right
hand and tremor of the left hand, as well as increased reaction time
and other indications of blockage of the verbal response.

In the experiment with which we are now concerned, Luria sug-
gested to subjects under hypnosis that they had lived through an
experience which he detailed to them, one that in real life would
have left them with strong emotions. To one subject, for example,
he suggested 58 that he went to a friend's room to borrow some
money, which he needed badly, and found that the friend was not
at home. While waiting in his room, he noticed a wallet of money
and decided to steal it. He left with the stolen money and was afraid
that it would be discovered that he was the thief.

After a specific emotional complex had been built up by such
suggestions, the subject awakened and had amnesia for all events,
of the trance. Before the trance, series of stimulus words had been
given the subject for response, according to Luria's technique. These
series contained critical words which related to the complex that
was going to be induced. After the trance these words were given
again in the same way, then the subject was rehypnotized, the sug-

67 A. R. Luria, The Nature of Human Conflicts, trans. W. H. Gantt, New York:
Livcnght, 1932, 128-49.
"llnd.. 140.

232 FORGETFUL UNCONSCIOUSNESS

gestions were countermanded, and the stimulus words were pre-
sented a third time in the same way as before.

Luria found from this technique that, although subjects were
unable to report anything about the emotional complex situation
of which they were unconscious (UNABLE TO COMMUNICATE and
UNREMEMBERING suppressing?), nevertheless the critical stimulus
words related to that complex produced the sort of behavior, obvi-
ously associated with the scene suggested in the trance, which in
earlier work he had found characteristic of conscious emotions. The
only difference was that such after-effects as tremors of the hands
continued on into the presentation of the next stimulus word or two
when the emotion was conscious, but when it was induced by hyp-
nosis all such signs ended before the next stimulus was given. The
main significance of this research is that unconscious (INCOMMU-
NICABLE or UNREMEMBERED suppressed?) processes exert a definite
influence on associations, which justifies the attempt to use an asso-
ciative technique to recover forgotten events in psychoanalysis. The
overt behavior caused by these unconscious processes was, further-
more, recognizably different from that caused by similar conscious
processes, and perhaps this difference could serve as an objective
method of distinguishing conscious complexes from unconscious
(INCOMMUNICABLE or UNREMEMBERED suppressed).

McGranahan has developed 59 a theory that repression (as he calls
it) is cognitive, constraining the activity of certain conscious proc-
esses rather than preventing unconscious (UNAVAILABLE TO AWARE-
NESS?, PSYCHOANALYTIC MEANING?) processes from becoming con-
scious. He performed an experiment in which the subjects were
given serially a list of one hundred names of objects, about one-
fifth of which would be likely to give rise to color associations, and
were instructed to report for each one the first adjective describing
the object named that occurred to them. One group was informed
that a strong electric shock would be given each time a color adjec-
tive was named, and this was done. No mention of color or of

69 D. V. McGranahan, A critical and experimental study of repression, /. Abnorm. and
Soc. PsychoL, 35, 1940, 212-25.

REPRESSION 233

shocks was given to the other group. The shocks caused some sub-
jects to give more color associations and others to give fewer than
was normal in the second group of subjects. Further, a rather high
correlation was found between the number of colors named by a
subject in the shock-situation and the degree of disruption caused
by shocks in his performance of a second, entirely different task.
McGranahan concluded from this high correlation that the subjects
most disorganized by fear during the second task were least able to
perform cognitive repression, and those least disturbed were best
able. He did not believe that most repression is caused by the
mechanism which the psychoanalysts outline, an elimination from
consciousness (AVAILABLE TO AWARENESS), but considered that most
is merely a limitation of report. For that reason his research dealt
with what has ordinarily been termed suppression, in which the
individual is unconscious only in the sense of UNABLE TO COMMUNI-
CATE, rather than repression, in which he is unconscious in the

PSYCHOANALYTIC MEANING.

6. REPRESSION

The theory of repression has been said by Freud 60 to be the pillar
on which rests the psychoanalytic edifice. One of Freud's major
contributions to psychotherapy was 01 discovering that the hypnosis
frequently used by psychiatrists to recover lost memories masks the
fact that the patient normally has resistances to remembering these
things and will often reforget them after the hypnosis. He believed
that unconscious (PSYCHOANALYTIC MEANING) psychic activity con-
tinues to cause things to be forgotten even after they have once
been brought to consciousness (COMMUNICABLE) by such procedures
as hypnosis. This doctrine of unrelenting pressure acting to force
certain sorts of thoughts into unconsciousness (UNREMEMBERED)
is the mainstay of psychoanalysis.

Orthodox psychoanalysts tell us that the energy for the repression

60 S. Freud, op. tit. (The History of the Psychoanalytic Movement), 939.
61 S. Freud, An Autobiographical Study, trans. J. Strachey, London: Hogarth Press,
1935, 47-53-

234 FORGETFUL UNCONSCIOUSNESS

comes from the instincts hiding in what they call^thc icL_Thc psy-
choanalysts pay great attention to these motivational aspects of
repression, but the main interest of laboratory psychologists in re-
pression has been as an explanation of forgetting, one part of the
general problem of memory. Although the majority of nonpsycho-
analytic writers have rejected the Freudian concept of instincts, many
adhere to the repression theory, interpreting the motivation for
repression in other ways. The doctrine of instincts has received more
severe criticism from academic psychologists than any other Freudian
belief, and the theory of repression has suffered because of its de-
pendence upon it. There is, however, no reason why repression
cannot be interpreted in terms of any psychology of needs or drives.

Freud maintained 02 that repressive forgetting happens as follows.
The actions which satisfy any instinct are inherently pleasant and
are performed because of the pleasure principle, that is, the tendency
to do what is pleasant and avoid what is unpleasant. However, the
sujxr-cgo, which is the internalization of parental discipline, acts to
thwart the expression of most instincts that well up from the id.
Super-ego anxiety is aroused because of unpleasant experiences
which occurred at other times when the instinct was satisfied. In
infancy and early childhood this anxiety concerns only the danger
of repetition of punishment, but later conscience develops. There-
after the instinctive desires may not be allowed to rise to conscious-
ness, because the individual can suffer much pain simply from realiz-
ing that he has the instincts. The satisfaction of instincts, which
was innately pleasant, is now accompanied by painful anxiety, and
the pleasure principle serves to cause repression of even the very
fact that the instincts exist.

Two kinds of repression of ideas connected with instincts have
been distinguished by Freud. The first is primal repression, denial of
entry into consciousness of any thoughts related to instinctive desires;
the second is after-expulsion, forcing into forgetfulness thoughts
which have already been conscious. The goal of every sort of repres-
sion is to eliminate instincts entirely from having effect in action.

62 Cf. S. Freud, Collected Papers. London: Hogarth Press. 1925, IV, 84-97.

REPRESSION 235

This goal is rarely achieved, and the instincts frequently influence
behavior, ideation, or emotion, although less than they would influ-
ence it if they were not repressed. Some of these modes of influence
which psychoanalysis has stressed are dreams, slips of the tongue
and pen, erroneous acts, symbolic behavior, neurotic symptoms, and
forgetting. Repression is like law enforcement: if the guardianship
of propriety is even momentarily relaxed, the antisocial instincts
find some way to break and enter into consciousness or overt
behavior.

A mass of clinical data is the source and backing of the theory
of repression. Most of it is derived by psychoanalytic procedure, and
the protocols are so lengthy that they are rarely published. This
unavailability of the data makes evaluation of such evidence diffi-
cult. Enough anecdotes and portions of psychoanalytic records have
been made public, however, to give a convincing argument. Case XII
of Chapter II (pp. 61-62) is a clinical record relating the story of a
woman with amnesia, who forgot a series of tragedies in her past, a
past which must have been most unpleasant to remember. This case
is not a report of a psychoanalysis, but the sort of situation with
which every large psychiatric clinic deals frequently. Nevertheless
it fits well into the scheme of repression, and it confirms the pleas-
ure principle. This woman temporarily severed the one connection
with her spectacularly unpleasant past, which was her memory.

Experimental psychology has made a serious effort to determine
if none, part, or all of the repression doctrine is true. The result of
the whole has been to verify the essentials of the clinical description
of the mechanism of unconsciousness (UNREMEMBERED).

(a) Freud's pleasure principle, that what is unpleasant is for-
gotten, has been subjected constantly to experimental test. The
majority of laboratory research related to the concept of repression
is on this problem. It is analyzed in Chapter X.

(b) Flanagan 63 had subjects memorize two series of fifteen pairs
of nonsense syllables. When associated syllables of one series were

63 D. Flanagan, The Influence of Emotional Inhibition on Learning and Recall, unpub-
lished thesis, 1930, on file at the University of Chicago Libraries (not viewed).

236 FORGETFUL UNCONSCIOUSNESS

read together, a meaningful word with a sexual connotation resulted.
In the other set the two syllables pronounced together gave a word
with a rural connotation. Fifty-six university students, control and
experimental groups, learned the two sets of associates until they
were able to make one perfect repetition. Each subject worked
alone, learning the syllables by repeating them aloud in the presence
of a man and a woman. The salacious material required almost
twice as many trials to learn as the rural material, and recall was
significantly poorer for the sexual syllable combinations.

Sharp used 04 a similar procedure to investigate repression, and
discovered that lists of associated syllables with religious and profane
meanings took longer to learn and were more poorly recalled than
lists with no emotional content. Both Flanagan and Sharp left one
factor uncontrolled. Their subjects were embarrassed by repeating
the sexual, religious, and profane words, and this embarrassment
may have made them learn these words less efficiently and hence
forget them more easily. The circumstances indicated, however,
that the results would have been about the same if this criticism
had been evaded, and it is likely that these researches show that
feelings of shame and other emotions can inhibit learning and
cause forgetting.

(c) Malamud and Linder discovered 65 an interesting confirma-
tion of the Freudian belief that repressed material may reappear
when the individual is unconscious (UNRESPONSIVE TO STIMULATION
ASLEEP or DREAMING). Psychopathic patients of these workers were
shown pictures which were chosen so that the patients might be
expected to relate them to their own conflicts. Later the patients
were asked to describe the pictures. Of course they forgot some
details, and they also made alterations. It was found that these
omissions and alterations often concerned the parts of the pictures
which the experimenters had thought, on the basis of the patient's
known condition, might be related by the patient to his own psy-

64 A. A. Sharp, The Influence of Certain Emotional Inhibitions on Learning and Recall,
unpublished thesis, 1930, on file in the University of Chicago Libraries (not viewed).

05 W. Malamud and F. E. Linder, Dreams and their relationship to recent impressions,
Arch. Neural, and Psychiat., 25, 1931, 1081-99.

REPRESSION 237

chosis. On the following day the patients reported their dreams of
the intervening night. Frequently aspects of the pictures that had
been forgotten or altered the day before reappeared in the dreams.
Similar findings resulted from work by Malamud 00 with a passage
of prose instead of pictures. The parts of the stimuli presented
which the subjects appeared to forget were repressed and reap-
peared when the restrictions of waking consciousness were removed.
Earlier investigations by German workers 07 followed comparable
procedures and resulted in much the same way.

(d) That pride and self-esteem can motivate repression has been
suggested by experimentation of Rosenzweig. 08 One group of sub-
jects was given a series of jig-saw puzzles to solve, purportedly in
order to help the experimenter get some knowledge about the
puzzles so they could be used in a future experiment. Another was
given the same jig-saw puzzles to solve as an intelligence test. Both
groups were allowed to finish only half of the puzzles. The first
group recalled more of the unfinished than of the finished puzzles,
so confirming the Zeigarnik effect which has been discussed previ-
ously in this chapter (pp. 224-225). In the second group, however,
whose pride and self-esteem were involved because they thought
they were taking an intelligence test, more of the finished puzzles
were recalled. In these subjects repression of failures by pride and
self-esteem overcame the Zeigarnik effect. Zeigarnik herself found 09
that when the tasks were interpreted by the subjects as tests of per-
sonal ability, she got the same sort of results as did Rosenzweig.

Evidence for the hypothesis of repression derived from these
researches is slim, but what there is is favorable. The hypothesis is
complex, and will require much more carefully worked out investi-
gations than any yet performed to confirm or disprove it. Rosen-

66 W. Malamud, Dream analysis, Arch. Neurol. and Psychiat., 31, 1934, 356-72.

67 O. Potzl, Expcnmcntell crregtc Traumbilder in ihrcn Bezichungcn zum indirckten
Schen, Ztschr. f. ges. Neurol. u. Psychiat., 37, 1917, 278-349; and R. Allers and J. Tclcr,
tiber die Verwcrtung unbcmerkter Rmdrucke bei Assoziationen, Ztschr. f. ges. Neurol. u.
Psychiat., 89, 1924, 492-513.

68 S. Rosenzwcig, in H. A. Murray et at., Explorations in Personality ' t New York: Oxford
University Press, 1938, 481-3; cf. also 472-80 and 484-90.

69 B. Zeigarnik, op. cit., 77.

238 FORGETFUL UNCONSCIOUSNESS

zweig's procedure is the best so far, but it, like all the others, cannot
escape important technical criticism. The present value of all this
work is to show that this theory of forgetting is open to experi-
mental trial. Indeed it has seemed to some so important to translate
the doctrine into the frame of reference of the laboratory that at
least two efforts 70 have been made to restate it in objective terms
of stimulus, response, facilitation, inhibition, and conditioning.

CONCLUSIONS

Freud never demonstrated better his great acumen and ability to
extract from many individual cases fundamental psychological prin-
ciples than in a short footnote on unconsciousness (LTNREMEM-
BERED). He wrote: 71

I can perhaps give the following outline concerning the mechanism
of actual forgetting. The memory material succumbs in general to
two influences, condensation and distortion. Distortion is the work
of the tendencies dominating the psychic life and directs itself above
all against the affective remnants of memory traces which maintain
a more resistive attitude towards condensation. The traces which
have grown indifferent, merge into a process of condensation with-
out opposition; in addition, it may be observed that tendencies of
distortion also feed on the indifferent material, because they have not
been gratified where they wished to manifest themselves. As these
processes of condensation and distortion continue for long periods,
during which all fresh experiences act upon the transformation of
the memory content, it is our belief that it is time that makes memory
uncertain and indistinct. It is quite probable that in forgetting, there
can really be no question of a direct function of time. From the
repressed memory traces, it can be verified that they suffer no changes
even in the longest periods. The unconscious, at all events, knows
no time limit. The most important, as well as the most peculiar char-
acter of psychic fixation consists in the fact that all impressions are,
on the one hand, retained in the same form as they were received,
and also in the forms that they have assumed in their further de-
velopment. This state of affairs cannot be elucidated by any com-

70 T. M. French, Interrelations between psychoanalysis and the experimental work of
Pavlov, Amcr. /. Psychiat., 12, 1933, 1165-1203; and R. R. Sears, op. cit., 245-55.

71 S. Freud, op. cit. (Psychopathology of Everyday Life), 174-5. By permission of
Random House, Inc.

CONCLUSIONS 239

parison from any other sphere. By virtue of this theory, every former
state of the memory content may thus be restored, even though all
original relations have long been replaced by newer ones.

These are the major points of this statement: Condensation and
distortion occur we have ample proof that memory is alterative.
Traces grow indifferent and merge into others this statement is
almost verbatim the conclusion of the Gestalt school from a solid
foundation of research. Fresh experiences act upon the transforma-
tion of memory content experimentalists call this process retro-
active inhibition. In forgetting there is no question of a direct
function of time in the light of present facts, "simple forgetting"
is no longer a tenable theory. Repression occurs the weight of ex-
perimental proof is in agreement with this statement.

Freud wrote the above paragraph in 1914, and more than a quarter
of a century later it remains a good epitome of what is known about
unconsciousness (UNREMEMBERED).

CHAPTER X
INHERITED UNCONSCIOUSNESS

Which appetites do you mean?

I mean those which are awake when the reasoning and human
and ruling power is asleep; then the wild beast within us, gorged
with meat or drink, starts up and having shaken off sleep, goes forth
to satisfy his desires. . . . The point which I desire to note is that
in all of us, even in good men, there is a lawless wild-beast nature,
which peers out in sleep.

So spoke Socrates in Plato's Republic* Throughout the centuries
it has been recognized that these inborn appetites, often not repre-
sented in consciousness, motivate many of the actions of men. The
philosophers have usually considered these primitive desires to be
evil. Besides Socrates there were St. Paul, 2 St. Thomas Aquinas, 3
the Protestant reformers, 4 and many others who spoke of "original
sin" long before Freud told us that the passions of the id are anti-
social. These instincts, said to be the main denizens of the under-
world of unconsciousness (PSYCHOANALYTIC MEANING), have been
the subjects of more controversy and criticism than any other part
of psychoanalytic theory. And this despite the common acceptance
of the fact that the inheritance of bodily structure and a nervous
system by any organism determines its behavior in ways that are
unconscious (INCOMMUNICABLE and UNRECOGNIZED).

INHERITED PATTERNS OF ACTION

Fabre, who more carefully than anyone else has studied inherited
action-patterns in insects and other animals, has termed instincts
"unconscious" impulsions. 5 In so doing he might be accused of com-

Dialogues of Plato, trans. B. Jowctt, The Republic, Book IX, Stcph. 571-2.

2 Romans 7:14-25.

3 St. Thomas Aquinas, Stimma Theologtca, II, i, Questions 81-3.

4 E.g., J. Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book II, Chap. I.
5 J.-H. Fabre, Souvenirs cntomologiques, Paris: Dclagrave, IV, 65-6.

240

INHERITED PATTERNS OF ACTION 241

mitting the error of judging the privacies of animals without, of
course, being able to get any communications from them. His argu-
ment, however, was not so fallacious. He believed that conscious-
ness is discernment of the nature of situations, and, insofar as insects
do not show such comprehension but follow set patterns of action
blindly, they seemed to him unconscious (INSIGHTLESS). He de-
scribed many complex instinctive actions of this sort which he ob-
served, for example, 6 the complicated and inalterable routine of
Sphex in arranging the cricket which will be food for the next gen-
eration in proper position near the eggs. Such acts the insects cannot
learn, for usually the generations never meet. The physiological con-
ditions, whatever they are, that determine this sort of behavior must
be inherited with the neural and somatic structure rather than
learned. One evidence of this is the preciseness of these action pat-
terns, and the difficulty of altering them even when change would be
to the animal's advantage.

In the Second Century A.D. Galen wrote 7 of taking an unborn
kid from a doe by dissection, and, before it could even see its dam,
allowing it to choose food from vessels of wine, oil, honey, and
milk. It smelled them all and then lapped up the milk. Richter, Holt,
and Barelare, long after Galen, studied 8 similar behavior by allow-
ing rats to choose their diet freely from pure food substances
casein (for proteins), dextrose or sucrose (for carbohydrates), olive
oil (for fats), inorganic salts, vitamin sources, and water. The rats
made selections in proportions conducive to excellent growth. After
the rats became pregnant, they changed their dietary selections so
as to maintain a normal physiological equilibrium in pregnancy
and lactation. The usual application of animal psychology to human
is to argue by analogy from the rat to man, but in this case the argu-

*lbid., I, 174-9.

7 Galen, De locis affectis, Lib. 6, Cap. 6, Medicorum Graecorum Opera, Lipsiae:
C. Cnobloch, VIII (1824), 443.

8 C. P. Richter, L. E. Holt, and B. Barelare, The effect of self selection of diet food
(protein, carbohydrates and fats), minerals, and vitamins on growth, activity, and repro-
duction of rats, Amer. /. Physiol., 119, 1937, 388-9; also C. P. Richter and B. Barelare,
Jr., Nutritional requirements of pregnant and lactatmg rats studied by the self-selection
method, Endocrinology, 23, 1938, 15-24.

242 INHERITED UNCONSCIOUSNESS

ment can proceed in the opposite direction. Since most men do not
know the normal proportions of the various components of diet
required to carry on normal physiological activity, it is quite obvious
that the behavior of these rats was unconscious (UNLEARNED and NOT
INVOLVING INSIGHT).

The inherited patterns of action in man, the somatic structures,
equilibria, and disequilibria which determine our acts in ways we
cannot tell of so-called "visceral unconsciousness" have recently
become the topic of experimentation.

(a) Young children in certain progressive schools, knowing
nothing of proper nutrition, have been allowed to choose their diets
from a selection of simple foods, much as did the rats of Richter,
Holt, and Barelare. A beneficial choice has usually been made by
the children. One exception, however, was a small boy who, never
having been allowed at home to have hard-boiled eggs, the first
day he was allowed to select for himself ate all the two dozen eggs
that had been set out. These children, like the rats, were unconscious
(ACTING INSTINCTIVELY, INSIGHTLESS, and UNABLE TO COMMUNICATE)
of why they acted as they did. Their choices were governed by
physiological disequilibria which affected a level of the nervous
system high enough to result in adequate discriminatory action,
but did not give rise to insight or communication about the reasons
for the decision.

Shackleton related that the members of his antarctic expeditions,
when food ran low, could not keep their thoughts, fantasies, and
dreams off the particular kinds of food of which they had been
deprived. The specific physiological lacks, which in all likelihood
the men could not report, had operated to bring to consciousness
(COMMUNICABLE) thoughts of what was necessary to satisfy those
wants. How this process operated, making them long for the de-
prived foods, the men could not have told. Why we feel hungry
most of us do not know, but Cannon and Washburn have proved 10

9 E. H. Shackleton, The Heart of the Antarctic, Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1909, I, 333
and 356; also E. H. Shacklcton, South, London: Heincmann, 1919, 108.

10 W. B. Cannon and A. L. Washburn, An explanation of hunger, Atner. J. Physiol.,
29, 1912, 441-54-

INHERITED PATTERNS OF ACTION 243

that hunger pangs are temporally related to stomach contractions.
The organism we have inherited is so constituted, however, that
we are not aware of stomach contractions as such when we need
food we feel hungry and, if things get bad enough, we see images
of what will satisfy us.

An unsolved problem is whether it is possible to have an uncon-
scious (UNRECOGNIZED) need, or whether, when the need gets strong
enough, the individual will become conscious of what will satisfy it.
Had all of Shackleton's explorers experienced the same kind of
hunger in lesser degree before their expedition, and so learned what
sort of foods appeased it best ? Or was this knowledge inherited and
forced to consciousness by the great need? The first explanation
seems the more likely, for there is no record of seamen suffering
from scurvy and dreaming of lemons and limes before the curative
powers of citrous fruits had been learned by trial and error. Until
quite recently there has been no careful examination of this whole
question of the inheritance of action-patterns that will satisfy needs.

(b) There are indications that the ability to judge time intervals
either in waking or in sleep is grounded in a physiological pace
setter, part of the inherited somatic structure. This mechanism of
temporal judgment, like that of dietary choice, is not available to
introspection. Research of Hoagland and others suggests 11 that the
body's pace setter, by means of which periods of time are estimated,
operates more rapidly at higher body temperatures. The change
with temperature fits quite closely Arrhenius's law concerning in-
crease of the rate of chemical reaction with heat, which implies that
the pace setter is a physiochemical mechanism.

(c) A remarkable phenomenon of language behavior, which is
unconscious (INCOMMUNICABLE) and may well depend on some
inherited characteristic of the nervous system, because no one has
suggested how it could be learned, has been discovered by Zipf. 12
He counted the frequency of every word used in many large samples
of normal spoken and written speech. The most frequently used

11 Cf. H. Hoagland, The physiological control of judgments of duration, /. Gen. Psychol.,
9> 1933, 267-87.

12 G. K. Zipf, The Psycho-Biology of Language, Boston: Hough ton Mifflin, 1935.

244 INHERITED UNCONSCIOUSNESS

word in each sample, no matter what it was, was given rank order
one, the second most frequently used rank two, and so on. Then
the rank of the word was plotted against the number of times it was
used. Zipf found that a curve of a definite type always results. Varia-
tions between individuals, between spoken and written speech, or
between topics of conversation make little difference in the shape
of the curve. This regularity of speech is unconscious (INCOMMUNI-
CABLE), for certainly few persons in all the centuries of human
language have ever guessed that the frequency of occurrence of the
words they used had enough regularity to be fitted to any sort of
curve.

It may be that this regular recurrence of words is a habit learned
by the infant as he begins to speak, or inherent in the sentence struc-
ture of language. It has seemed to Zipf more likely that it is an
inherited, quasi-biological rhythm. Such an explanation may be
difficult for many psychologists to accept, but no tenable suggestion
as to how it could be acquired has been advanced.

INHERITED VS. ACQUIRED ACTION-PATTERNS

Proving conclusively that a trait or characteristic of behavior is
inherited rather than acquired is the chief difficulty of all considera-
tions of unconscious (INHERITED) processes. It is nearly impossible
to demonstrate that the unconscious (PSYCHOANALYTIC MEANING)
aggressions of Freud or the ideas in the "collective unconscious" of
Jung are innate rather than acquired.

This dilemma is the less soluble because of two facts: innate pat-
terns of behavior may be modified by experiences early in life, and
inherited effects on action may mature only long after birth, (a)
The effects of infantile experiences on instinctive behavior have
been emphasized by Freud 13 and Rank. 14 The latter has argued that
the traumata of birth modify inherited temperamental characteris-
tics. Birth, moreover, is merely an incident in a life that began
months before, and intrauterine learning or conditioning undoubt-

13 E.g., S. Freud, The Basic Writings of Sigmund Freud, ed. A. A. Brill, New York:
Random House, 1938 (Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex), 580-603.

14 O. Rank, The Trauma of Birth, New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1929.

THE THEORIES OF INSTINCTS 245

edly occurs. What part of "instinctual" behavior in a given case is
dependent upon actual inherited somatic structures and what part
is due to modification by experience is often a moot question, (b)
Behavior patterns, first appearing months or years after birth, may
be inherited and unmodified by experience, simply maturing late.
Carmichael has shown 15 that the swimming habits of salamanders
appear at a certain period in maturation of the organism whether
or not the individual animal has any external stimulation during
maturation or any opportunity to learn to swim. Presumably this
finding indicates that part of maturation is an organization of the
nervous system. Craig has shown 16 that the sexual behavior patterns
and the nest calls of pigeons raised in isolation mature after puberty
without any opportunity to learn them from other birds. Freud's
emphasis on infantile sexuality has quite possibly come about be-
cause of his belief that sex, being the outstanding unconscious (IN-
HERITED) drive in man, must necessarily be present throughout all
the history of the individual. This assumption may be true, but
it is also entirely conceivable that the sexual instincts could be
innate and still not mature until puberty.

THE THEORIES OF INSTINCTS

The instincts were first conceived in psychology and psycho-
therapy as metaphysical forces, for example McDougalPs 17 "gregari-
ousness." It was generally admitted that many of these forces are
"unconscious," but in what sense the word was used was usually
not clear. It was uncertain whether this unconsciousness was the
result of the forces being inherited and so never being consciously
learned, or whether they had once been conscious and then had
been repressed. Freud's original interpretation of the instincts was
metaphysical; the depths of the id were believed to contain the sex,
aggression, and death desires. He recognized from the first, how-

15 L. Carmichael, A further experimental study of the development of behavior, Psychol.
Rev., 35, 1928, 253-60.

16 W. Craig, Male doves reared in isolation, /. Animal Behavior, 4, 1914, 121-33.

17 W. McDougall, An Introduction to Social Psychology, 2oth ed., London: Methuen,
1926, 7I-5-

246 INHERITED UNCONSCIOUSNESS

ever, the central role of physiological processes in these instincts.
The psychoanalytic school shows ever-increasing interest in this
physiological basis. Indeed, no interpretation of inherited uncon-
scious motivations is tenable today which does not ground them in
the function of physiochemical systems of the nervous, endocrine,
or other tissues.

As long as these systems remain in relatively good equilibrium,
many of them do not arouse the vigilance of the nervous system
and so are unconscious (INCOMMUNICABLE). When, however, dis-
equilibria develop, giving rise to a change in proprioceptive stimu-
lation, most, if not all, are capable of arousing such vigilance and
entering consciousness. 18 Certainly, just because a drive is inherited
is no reason why it is unconscious in any other sense except INHER-
ITED. These systems are kept in equilibrium by proper satisfactions.
Thirst is quenched by water, for example, and this inherited need
is normally unconscious (INCOMMUNICABLE) unless it has not been
gratified for a number of hours. Introspective reports of subjects
during water fasts have shown 19 that, when mildly thirsty, one finds
oneself automatically, unconsciously (UNATTENDING) going to get
a drink. When one has a brisk appetite, such unconscious (UNAT-
TENDED) motor reactions concerned with food have also been found

to occur."

Besides these somagenic needs, it may be asked, are there not less
physical, psychogenic instincts which cannot be described in such
crudely physical terms? Is McDougall's instinct of gregariousness,
for example, merely a physiological state? The response must be
that, if it is inherited (and there is little evidence that it is), it must
be mediated by some part of the body probably the nervous system.
In that sense gregariousness is as grossly materialistic as hunger,
although both have their subjective aspects.

The extreme contention that "mental content" is inherited is to

18 Cf. J. Jastrow, The Subconscious, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1906, 7-15.

19 E. G. Boring, Processes referred to the alimentary and urinary tracts, Psychol. Rev.,
22, 1915, 307-10.

20 E. G. Boring and A. Luce, The psychological basis of appetite, Amer. J. Psychol.,
28, 1917, 443-53-

THE THEORIES OF INSTINCTS 247

be found in Jung's defense of the "collective unconscious." 21 Even
he, however, believed that the vehicle of this inheritance is the brain
structure. Sometimes he described these unconscious (INCOMMUNI-
CABLE) ideas which the individual has but could never have got
from his own experience as if they result from being human, just
as a mineral is phosphorescent because it is radium or as we walk
as we do because we are bipeds. At other times he appeared to
defend a sort of continual Lamarckian inheritance of acquired ex-
periences from generation to generation. The nervous structures of
our ancestors are altered by their experiences, and we inherit those
modifications. To support his theory Jung referred 22 to dreams of
children that resemble the fairy-tales which are common property
of the race, and to identical beliefs about natural phenomena found
in many lands and tribes.

This conception of inheritance of unconscious (INCOMMUNICABLE)
knowledge is gaining acceptance among depth psychologists gen-
erally, though there is only meager clinical and no experimental
foundation for it. Academic psychologists are likely to discount
what data there are because of the many experiments of recent years
which demonstrate the large effect of training on what was before
thought to be inherited. Large alterations of intelligence ratings,
for instance, can occur when living conditions are changed. Inher-
itance of the effects of experiences of ancestors has by no means
been disproved, though, and it calls for adequate test more than
almost any other enigma of unconsciousness (INCOMMUNICABLE).

This visceral unconsciousness is the depths of the depth psycholo-
gists. Our choice of words seems to be based on biological rhythms;
our love affairs are firmly grounded in physiological processes; our
decisions may be determined by the number of cups of coffee drunk
the previous evening. Usually these underlying determinants are
incommunicable and rooted in inherited structures. No explanation
of behavior has gone far enough until it deals with such uncon-
scious (INHERITED and INCOMMUNICABLE) phenomena.

21 C. G. Jung, Psychological Types, New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1924, 616.
22 C. G. Jung, Contributions to Analytic Psychology, trans. H. G. and C. F. Baynes,
New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1928, 103-25.

248 INHERITED UNCONSCIOUSNESS

THE PSYCHOANALYTIC DOCTRINE OF INSTINCTS

The Freudians and unconsciousness (EVERY MEANING) have risen
together to popular fame with the psychoanalytic lore of hidden
instincts which are responsible for every act of man. Because of this
connection, too, the exploration of unconsciousness (EVERY MEAN-
ING) has suffered its greatest setback, for the opponents of the psycho-
analysts have become opponents of unconsciousness (EVERY MEANING).
It is not to be wondered at that scientists who wish to be hard-
headed would eschew the underground wonderland of psycho-
analytic instincts with its sex, aggression, death desires, and secret
complexes with Greek names which have become playthings of the
arts. In this field myth and allegory have made their greatest in-
roads into psychology. An illustration is the suggestion, made in all
seriousness, 23 that the instinctual Oedipus situation is manifested
in the accepted attitudes toward the different forms of sonnets, the
Italian form representing the mother's body and the Shakespearean
the father.

Nonpsychoanalysts who put the psychoanalytic theory to clinical
test usually agree that, despite the unscientific character of many of
the statements, the broad Freudian theory of instincts corresponds
to actual phenomena. Sex and aggression are indeed exceedingly
strong drives; the repression of these drives certainly occurs; the
effects of authority in this repression are indubitably salient. Like
Blake's "Tiger! Tiger! burning bright," however, the exact mean-
ing of it all is elusive. As Pratt has said, 24 it will be a long time
before this imaginative poetry is translated into the prose of science.

Freudian theory finds two inherited functions operating to limit
the span of consciousness, forcing ideas, stimuli, and memories into
unconsciousness (PSYCHOANALYTIC MEANING). These two have been
named the utility principle and the pleasure-pain principle. Freud's
utility principle refers to 25 "the production, distribution, and con-

23 C. Rmaker, Some unconscious factors in the sonnet as a poetic form, Internal. J.
Psycho-Anal., 12, 1931, 167-87.

2 *C. C. Pratt, The Logic of Modern Psychology, New York: Macmillan, 1939, 164.
25 E. Jones, Recent advances in psycho-analysis, Internal. /. Psycho-Anal., i, 1920, 175.

THE PSYCHOANALYTIC DOCTRINE OF INSTINCTS 249

sumption of definite quantities of physical excitation or energy
according to the economic principle of the greatest advantage with
the least effort." It is essentially the same economic, conservative
principle which was referred to in earlier chapters (e.g., pp. 164-182),
where it was suggested diat many activities become automatic or
pass from the focus of attention because that is the most efficient
way for the organism to operate. In order for the organism to be
vigilant of one process, it apparently must have its decks cleared for
action, and for that reason it dispenses with all activities which may
be accomplished automatically.

Much forgetting, or at least the neglect of many memories and
stimuli, can be explained by the utility principle. If Paderewski,
when he seated himself in his old fringed chair at the beginning of
a concert, had been conscious of all the notes he was going to play
all evening, it might well have been expected that his technique
would suffer. This sort of forgetful unconsciousness, occurring
under the utility principle, is suppression, what Freud would term
"thrusting into preconsciousness."

Repressive forgetting, on the other hand, is said by the psycho-
analysts to result from the operation of the pleasure-pain principle.
Repressed memories are relegated, not to preconsciousness, but to
the depths of unconsciousness (PSYCHOANALYTIC MEANING). Fre-
quently the effects of the two principles are indistinguishable. A
man may force painful thoughts of his divorced wife out of his
consciousness while he is at the office because their haunting pres-
ence interrupts his work. Whether this is pleasure-pain repression
or utilitarian suppression is hard to tell. Usually, however, it is pos-
sible to distinguish which of the inherited principles of the organ-
ism has effect. A football player may keep constantly in mind
throughout the rest of the season his failure in the first game to
tackle an opponent who rushed by his position. He does this in
order not to make the same mistake again. Here the utilitarian
principle obviously counteracts any action of the pleasure-pain prin-
ciple. On the other hand, Darwin found that the latter principle

250 INHERITED UNCONSCIOUSNESS

overcame the former, for he had no difficulty in remembering the
arguments in favor of his theory of organic evolution, though he
repeatedly forgot adverse facts. He had to take to writing down all
contradictory evidence immediately.

THE PSYCHOANALYTIC BELIEFS ON PAIN, PLEASURE,
AND FORGETTING

The differentiation between pleasurable and painful experiences
is of fundamental importance to the organism, and if anything is
inherited or instinctual certainly it is the ability to distinguish pain
from pleasure. Freud discovered independently that as a result of
the inherited ability to make this distinction, painful things tend
to be forgotten and pleasant ones remembered. This fact, which
Darwin found to be true in his own case, has been made explicit by
a succession of wise men, of whom Freud's immediate predecessors
were Schopenhauer 20 and Nietzsche. 27 Academic psychologists also
have their law of effect concerning learning and remembering, a
law enunciated by Thorndike. 28 It is a statement of psychological
hedonism: "pleasure stamps in, pain stamps out." Thorndike did
not, however, mean exactly the same thing by his principle as Freud
did by his. His idea was that a connection between a situation and a
response is strengthened if it is satisfying and weakened if annoy-
ing, and Freud's idea was that forgetting occurs, not by weakening
connections that would have unpleasant effects, but by forcing the
whole stimulus-response connection into unconsciousness (PSYCHO-
ANALYTIC MEANING). Thorndike's and Freud's mechanisms, how-
ever, both operate retroactively, for the memory traces must last
until the pleasant or unpleasant result of learning occurs to deter-
mine whether the trace will continue.

It has become apparent that when Freud said 29 that much forget-

26 Cj. O. Juliusburger, Die Bedeutung Schopenhauers fur die Psychiatric, Allg. Ztschr. /.
Psychiat., 69, 1912, 622.

27 F. Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, trans. H. Zimmern, London: Good European
Soc., 1907, 86, 68.

28 Cf. E. L. Thorndike ct al., The Fundamentals of Learning, New York: Teachers Col-
lege, Columbia University, 1932, 176-7.

28 S. Freud, op. cif. (Psychopathology of Everyday Life), 96.

PAIN, PLEASURE, AND FORGETTING 251

ting has been proved to be based upon a motive of displeasure, he
did not agree with most experimentalists as to what pain and pleas-
ure are, for the cases of psychoanalysts have shown that what most
of us would call painful experiences, like the death of a close friend
or the pulling of a tooth, are often remembered for an unusually
long time and with especial clarity. An experience is painful in the
psychoanalytic sense only if it entails shame to the individual or is
repugnant to moral or social standards. If such an experience ob-
trudes into consciousness, psychoanalysts believe that it is masking
even more painful ideas. Academic psychologists have not defined
pain and pleasure with reference to ego injury or super-ego disap-
proval, and this difference is the chief reason why^ experimental
research in regard to the effect of hedonic values on repression has
been unsatisfactory.

In present psychoanalytic theory repression is only one, though
the most powerful, of at least ten mechanisms for defending the
ego in conflict situations. The ten have been listed as follows: 30
regression, repression, reaction-formation, isolation, undoing, pro-
jection, introjection, turning against the self, reversal, and sublima-
tion. It is in this company of defenses of the ego that Freudian
repression must be viewed, and it must always be recognized that
it is only situations likely to be painful to the ego, or to affect per-
sonal integrity, which are involved in the working of the pleasure
principle.

Because of the frequent changes in psychoanalytic theory, and
because of an unfortunate tendency of theories of repression to slip
from concrete actualities into abstract speculations, it is difficult to
understand exactly how Freud thought repression occurs, and what
to him was the role of the instincts in it.

In his earlier writings he stated that what are repressed are un-
pleasant thoughts or ideas capable of roducing shame, guilt, or
injury to self-esteem. More recently he insisted 31 that it is the ideas
about" the strivings of the id, about the primitive feelings and im-

80 Anna Freud, The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defence, trans. C. Baines, London:
Hogarth Press, 1937, 47; cf. also 45, 46, and 48-54.
31 S. Freud, Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety, London: Hogarth Press, 1936.

252 INHERITED UNCONSCIOUSNESS

pulses, against which repression is a defense. This latter interpreta-
tion emphasized also the repression of the id impulses themselves.
There has been much confusion as to what forces or agents do the
repressing. All the following have been held responsible by at least
one depth psychologist, according to McGranahan's tabulation: 32
the "censor," the "ego," the "ego ideal," the "super-ego," the "ego
instincts," the "death instinct," "fear," "anxiety," the "pleasure-pain
principle," "guilt feelings," "self-esteem," the "master sentiment of
self-regard," and the "sex instinct."

EXPERIMENTATION ON PAIN, PLEASURE, AND FORGETTING

In considering the search of the laboratory for confirmation of
the psychoanalytic doctrine about the role of pleasure and pain in
forgetting, it is convenient to adopt two abbreviations. Pleasantness
and unpleasantness in experimental psychology have rarely meant
the same things as pleasure and pain have to Freudians, but the
similarity of the terms has led to the widespread misapprehension
that they have the same meaning. Fortunately, to differentiate the
two sets of ideas, all that is necessary is to accept a symbolism that
has been current for years among academic psychologists. They
refer to pleasant stimuli as P and unpleasant as U.

Though there is a large number of investigations of the relation
of P and U to memory, they are by no means in even general agree-
ment. The extremes of the gamut of opinion are antipodal. On the
one hand Tait concluded 33 that P impressions are better remem-
bered than U y and on the other hand Wohlgemuth, after reviewing
a large amount of research on the question, affirmed 34 that there is
not the slightest evidence that U experiences are more easily for-
gotten than P.

To reach any conclusion on the general result of this research, one

32 D. V. McGranahan, A critical and experimental study of repression, /. Abnorm. and
Soc. Psychol., 35, 1940, 216.

33 W. D. Tait, Effect of psycho-physical attitudes on memory, /. Abnorm. and Soc.
Psychol., 8, 1913, 10-37.

84 A. Wohlgemuth, A Critical Examination of Psycho- Analysis, New York: Macmillan,
1923, 37-

EXPERIMENTATION ON PAIN, PLEASURE, AND FORGETTING 253

must work through a mass of findings. An inventory, which is
probably complete, includes, up to 1940, fifty-one investigations
which bear more or less directly on this question. 35 In these, the
thesis that P material is better remembered than U was said to be
upheld by thirty-three; thirteen either did not confirm or contra-
dicted it; and the findings of five were indeterminate. There can be
little doubt that in research showing relative lack of bias, the evi-
dence has been strongly in favor of the beneficial effect of P feeling
on memory. One is not warranted, however, in accepting all the
experiments as of equal value, for many are subject to serious tech-
nical criticisms.

Though a large number of the investigators did not pretend to be
subjecting the Freudian theory of repression to laboratory test, yet
this whole body of research has time and again been held to bear
on that theory. The assumed identity of U items with painful items
which, according to Freudian theory, can induce repression is en-
tirely false. The psychoanalytic theory maintains that material is
repressed when it is capable of "wounding the ego," causing feel-
ings of guilt, shame, or loss of self-esteem. The distinction between
P and U experiences, on the other hand, is largely an esthetic pref-
erence. A subject may call an odor or a picture P, and yet it may be
an ideal object for after-expulsion repression because it arouses as-
sociations with a guilt-inducing experience. Or, again, such mildly
sexual stimulation as the words "girl-friend" or "embrace" or a
love scene in a novel might be judged P, and yet arouse shame and
super-ego disapproval, and so be repressed. Of course, in many cases
P items may also be pleasurable and U items painful in the Freudian
sense.

85 Forty-eight of these experiments are listed in the following three articles: H. Meltzer,
The present status of experimental studies on the relationship of feeling to memory, Psychol.
Rev., 37, 1930, 124-39; H. Cason, The learning and retention of pleasant and unpleasant
activities, Arch, of Psychol., 21, 1932, No. 134; and G. M. Gilbert, The new status of experi-
mental studies on the relationship of feeling to memory, Psychol. Bull., 35, 1938, 26-35.
The other three researches are: P. T. Young, A study upon the recall of pleasant and
unpleasant words, Amcr. /. Psychol., 49, 1937, 581-96; A. A. Sharp, An experimental
test of Freud's doctrine of the relation of hedonic tone to memory revival, /. Expcr.
Psychol., 22, 1938, 395-418; and L. I. O'Kelly and L. C. Steckle, The forgetting of
pleasant and unpleasant experiences, Amer. J. Psychol., 53, 1940, 432-4.

254 INHERITED UNCONSCIOUSNESS

A second reason why most of these experiments do not apply to
psychoanalytic doctrine is that usually the experience was classified
as P or U at the time it happened rather than when recall of it was
attempted. Certainly many events that were pleasant when they
occurred (bathing naked in childhood) might later be thought
shameful and repressed, while on the other hand a most distressing
happening (forgetting how to end a waltz in a piano recital) often
in after years is only an amusing anecdote to tell to friends. The
P or U quality of an experience at the time it occurred may be
important for the law of effect, but it is important for repression
only if the nature of the feeling does not change with time.

A third reason why this body of research as a whole does not, as
has been so often thought, deal with repression is that the differ-
ence between P and U feelings may be acquired after birth, while
it is an essential tenet of psychoanalytic theory that the distinction
between pain and pleasure is instinctual, inherited.

Two of the researches dealing with P and U feelings, one by
Koch 30 and one by Sharp, 37 are significant tests of Freudian repres-
sion theory as it stands today, (a) Koch gave her subjects ten
quizzes in a course in educational psychology. She returned these
with a percentage grade and asked the students to mark on them
whether they were discouraged, mildly discouraged, indifferent,
mildly happy, or very happy about the grades. Several weeks later
she asked them to remember all the grades they had received. More
of the pleasant than of the unpleasant grades were remembered,
and the indifferent grades were most poorly recalled. Since pre-
sumably self-esteem was directly affected by the grades received, this
result seems to be proof of true Freudian repression. Other factors
were operating in this situation, however, as Koch herself recog-
nized. 38 For one thing, the course had not ended and bad grades
could not safely be forgotten because of the danger to academic

86 H. L. Koch, The influence of some affective factors upon recall, /. Gen. PsychoL,

87 A. A. Sharp, An experimental test of Freud's doctrine of the relation of hedonic tone
to memory revival, /. Expcr. PsychoL , 22, 1938, 395-418.

88 H. L. Koch, op. cit., 185-6.

CONCLUSIONS 255

standing. Hence the impression left by discouraging grades would
tend to be more vivid than that left by those giving "indifferent" or
even "very happy" reactions. This adaptation to the present need
probably accounts for the poor recall of indifferent grades, but
makes the repression of the unpleasant grades the more remarkable,
considering their importance to the subjects.

() Sharp used three groups of subjects. One learned fifteen
acceptable phrases; the second, fifteen unacceptable; and the third,
fifteen neutral. The acceptable phrases described acts which the case
histories of 130 patients in a psychiatric clinic showed to be emo-
tionally acceptable to them. The unacceptable and neutral materials
were similarly chosen. This method appears satisfactory for choos-
ing items which satisfy Freud's criteria for what are and are not
repressed. Then recall was tested two, nine, and sixteen days later.
After the last recall relearning was carried out. The unacceptable
phrases were more poorly recalled and more difficult to relearn than
the neutral. The acceptable were forgotten to a degree at the time
of the first memory test, but showed enhanced recall (an actual
increase in the number of items remembered) thereafter. In the
long run, therefore, the acceptable phrases were better retained than
the neutral. This research thus substantiates the Freudian doctrine
of repression.

CONCLUSIONS

With the inheritance of our bodily structure, especially the nerv-
ous and endocrine systems, human beings inherit patterns of action.
The operation of these unconscious (INHERITED) instinctual proc-
esses is often unconscious in other senses (INCOMMUNICABLE and
UNAVAILABLE TO AWARENESS). Sometimes, however, an individual
may become conscious (ABLE TO COMMUNICATE and AWARE OF DIS-
CRIMINATION) of their effect in regulating his actions.

The Freudians have emphasized the importance of the instincts,
which they hold to be unconscious in the PSYCHOANALYTIC MEANING.
One of these inherited functions is the distinction between pleasur-
able and painful experiences, and upon this distinction the Freudian

256 INHERITED UNCONSCIOUSNESS

doctrine of repressive forgetting is premised. Although some exper-
imental research has substantiated this doctrine, the main contribu-
tion of the psychology of the laboratory to the general question has
been to show that all pleasant or unpleasant feeling not merely
pain and pleasure in the restricted psychoanalytic sense has an
effect upon memory.

CHAPTER XI
INVOLUNTARY UNCONSCIOUSNESS

In his presidential address to the American Psychological Asso-
ciation in 1916, Watson made 1 what appears to be an attempt to
forestall the criticism that the conditioned response which he had
suggested as a substitute for introspection involved consciousness.
He set about to demonstrate that the response is not necessarily or
essentially a voluntary reaction. At that time voluntary and con-
scious were to some academic psychologists interestingly synony-
mous. Agerberg has supported 2 such a position more recently, stat-
ing that a conscious action must be a voluntary action.

The words involuntary and unconscious have repeatedly been
equated. It has been pointed out by Koffka 3 that voluntary is com-
monly used in two different senses voluntary acts are contrasted,
on the one hand, with impulsive and instinctive acts and, on the
other, with automatic acts. Involuntary thus means unconscious in
at least two usages (UNLEARNED and UNATTENDED). Koffka held that
these popular significances are full of suggestive meaning but that
they must be used with reserve scientifically.

An important aspect of unconsciousness (PSYCHOANALYTIC MEAN-
ING), as viewed by Freud, is that it is not under voluntary control. 4
These functions proceed independently of all direction by the ego
and cannot even be recalled to consciousness by it under ordinary
circumstances. Hypnosis, free association, or some other special
procedure is required for such recall. The effects on behavior of the

X J. B. Watson, The place of the conditioned-reflex in psychology, Psychol. Rev., 23,

1916, 98-100.

2 J. Agerbcrg, Consciousness as a physiological function, Acta Psyclnat. et Neurol., 4,
1929, 122.

3 K. Koffka, Principles of Gestalt Psychology, New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1935, 4i7-8 t
4 C/. A. A. Brill, in S. Freud, The Basic Writings of Sigmund Freud, cd. A. A. Brill,

New York: Random House, 1938, 13.

257

258 INVOLUNTARY UNCONSCIOUSNESS

repressed instincts are also involuntary in that neither ego nor
super-ego desires or approves of such actions.
~ Remy ^e Gourmont, in a consideration of creative writing, has
said'' that composition is, even for the most ponderous and unin-
spired writer, continually enriched by words welling up from the
reservoir of unconsciousness (INVOLUNTARY). He directly opposes
these unconscious (INVOLUNTARY) processes to voluntary processes.
It is the lay, common-sense view, also, that volition is the essence
of personal consciousness. The subjective experience of willing to
perform some act is commonly accepted as characteristic of con-
sciousness, and is the first experience to disappear as consciousness
wanes. One of the reasons the academic psychology has seemed to
many to be unrealistic is that it has cast off this view.

VOLITION AND DETERMINISM

A major explanation of the rejection of doctrines of volition is
that any such theory has seemed to many psychologists to smack of
vitalism and free will. In the nineteenth century, textbooks of psy-
chology ordinarily contained several chapters on the psychology of
the will. At present, comparable works devote scarcely more than
a paragraph or two to the question, and this is likely to be mere
polite acquiescence to a glorious past. Experimentation on volition
is now practically never undertaken, mainly because of the psychol-
ogist's acceptance of determinism and a general feeling diat some-
how this rules phenomena of will out of consideration.

Determinism is an essential assumption of the method of science:
If phenomena are not determined, they will not be predictable, and
scientific laws cannot be discovered. Scientists, therefore, for the
purpose of searching out the regularities of nature, must impose
order upon the world; and some have concluded falsely that this
necessity requires the denial of individual volition, which sub-
jectively appears to be free. Because Freud was declaredly a deter-
minist, 6 and followed carefully the principle of determinism in his

6 R. de Gourmont. La culture des idees, Paris: Soc. du Mercure de France, 1900, 51.
6 Cf. S. Freud, op. tit. (Psythopathology of Everyday Life), 150-1.

THE AUTONOMIC NERVOUS SYSTEM 259

explanation of slips of the tongue and other lapses, references to
volition have frequently been considered contradictions within his
system. What he did, however, was to accept as a real phenomenon
the individual's reported "illusion" or subjective impression of vol-
untary choice, and then proceed to try to find a deterministic
explanation. This is a proper scientific procedure.

INVOLUNTARY FUNCTIONS OF THE AUTONOMIC
NERVOUS SYSTEM

Physiologists describe as "involuntary" the bodily functions,
usually controlled by the autonomic nervous system, which are not
effected by the combined operation of striped musculature and a
normally functioning central nervous system. The pulse rate, the
systolic and diastolic blood pressures, the movements of body hairs,
and the fluctuations of pupil size are examples of variables that are
involuntary in this sense. All these, however, have apparently been
brought under voluntary control by various experimenters. 7 Of
course certain such alterations, such as raising the metabolic rate or
raising the pulse rate, might be explained by indirect effects, like
thinking of frightening experiences, but this sort of indirect stimula-
tion was ruled out in the experiments. It is known, however, that
the autonomic nervous system is connected through the communi-
cating rami with the central nervous system, and is represented in
the lateral horns of the spinal cord as well as in the hypothalamus
and the medulla. This connection makes it seem plausible that au-
tonomic functions could come under voluntary central nervous sys-
tem control. What is physiologically involuntary thus may easily
be introspectively voluntary.

In psychology these two senses of involuntary have often been
improperly confused. Probably because Watson wished to disprove

7 Cf. T. M. Carpenter, R. G. Hoskins, and F. A. Hitchcock, Voluntarily induced increases
in the rates of certain "involuntary" physiological processes of a human subject, Amer. J.
Physiol., no, 1934, 320-8; and D. B. Lmdslcy and W. H. Sassaman, Autonomic activity
and brain potentials associated with "voluntary" control of the pilomotors (mm. arrcctores
pilorum), /. NeurophysioL, i, 1938, 342-9.

260 INVOLUNTARY UNCONSCIOUSNESS

the position which many have maintained, 8 that conditioned reflexes
involve consciousness, and because voluntary and conscious were
often thought to mean the same thing, he attempted to show that
involuntary functions can be conditioned. He developed some degree
of conditioning of pupillary contraction, and insisted that, since this
contraction is mediated solely by the autonomic nervous system, the
conditioning could not be voluntary. Some years afterward, Cason 10
strengthened the experimental basis of Watson's argument by con-
clusively demonstrating pupillary conditioning, and reported fur-
ther that some subjects were unconscious (UNABLE TO COMMUNICATE)
of the conditioning stimulus and that none was conscious of the
pupillary changes. Later the same year he reported 11 conditioning
of winking, which was involuntary in that the subjects all insisted
that they were unconscious (UNABLE TO COMMUNICATE) of the winks
until after they had occurred and that there were no accompanying
introspective "images" or "affective elements," at least until after
the winks.

By conditioning, Hudgins succeeded 12 in developing the pupillary
reflex so that the subject's pupil would contract if he thought the
word contract. This conditioning, he believed, was unconscious
learning beyond voluntary control for two reasons: because ten of
the subjects did not realize that their pupillary reactions were being
conditioned (INCOMMUNICABLE) and because there are no afferent
neurones passing from the iris (UNSENSED, STIMULI NOT REACHING THE
CORTEX). Since such research on pupillary conditioning does not
differentiate between what is conscious and what is voluntary, the
confusion between the two is readily understandable. An experi-
mental study by Yacorzynski and Guthrie 13 made a distinction

8 E.g., I. A. Hamcl, A study and analysis of the conditioned reflex, Psychol. Monog.,
27, 1919, No. 118, 1-65.
J. B. Watson, he. at.

10 H. Cason, The conditioned pupillary reaction, /. Exper. Psychol , 5, 1922, 108-46.

11 H. Cason, The conditioned e>ehd reaction, /. Exper. Psychol., 5, 1922, 153-96.

12 C. V. Hudgins, Conditioning and the voluntary control of the pupillary light reflex,
/. Gen. Psychol., 8, 1933, 3-51. C/. also W. S. Hunter and C. V. Hudgins, Voluntary activity
from the standpoint of behaviorism, /. Gen. Psychol., 10, 1934, 198-204.

13 G. K. Yacorzynski and E. R. Outline, A comparative study of involuntary and volun-
tary conditioned responses, /. Gen. Psychol., 16, 1937, 235-57.

THE SUBJECTIVE FEELING OF VOLUNTARY DECISION 261

between them, however. These workers conditioned to the sound
of a buzzer involuntary (automatic) withdrawal of the left hand
from a shock and voluntary (instructed) movement of the right
hand. They found that the two sorts of conditioning are different
in various ways, but that either voluntary or involuntary condi-
tioned responses can occur and the subjects be unconscious (UNABLE
TO COMMUNICATE) of them.

THE SUBJECTIVE FEELING OF VOLUNTARY DECISION

From PenfieldV 4 experimental faradization of the cortex of con-
scious (RESPONSIVE TO STIMULATION NOT ANESTHETIZED) individuals
is derived our best proof that an act may be unconscious (INVOLUN-
TARY) and still conscious (COMMUNICABLE). By stimulating the
motor cortex Penfield was able to get motions of various parts of
the body including the larynx, although no recognizable words
were formed. The patients introspected upon their sensations when
these movements occurred. The most revealing history which Pen-
field gave of such an experiment is Case XV of Chapter II (pp. 66-
67). Throughout Penfield's study there are definite proofs that a
subjective difference clearly exists between voluntary and involun-
tary actions. Electrical stimulation of the cortex, especially in the
region of the fissure of Rolando, produced movements which the
individual usually did not inhibit and could not prevent without
serious effort, if at all. The patients did not feel these actions to be
voluntary, but said "My leg moved itself," "It seems involuntary,"
and so forth. Stimulation sometimes produced, instead of motor
activity, what was described as a desire to move a part of the body
a desire which could be suppressed. Penfield believed 15 that volun-
tary decision resulting in motor activity is a major characteristic of
consciousness, but he admitted that a person can be conscious (in
some other sense) and still not be acting voluntarily or at all. A
patient, after an epileptic seizure, may say that he heard and saw

14 W. Penfield, The cerebral cortex in man I., Arch. Ncurol. and Psychiat., 40, 1938,
417-42.

15 Ibid., 440-1.

262 INVOLUNTARY UNCONSCIOUSNESS

all that was happening but could not give any outward sign of this
consciousness.

Though subjects seem to be able to distinguish self-consistently
between the feelings of voluntary and of involuntary activities, there
is experimental proof that they can believe they are choosing freely
and voluntarily when the conditions are such that their reactions
are wholly determined by external factors. Ach reported 16 such an
experimental investigation, in which "free" voluntary choices were
as rigidly controlled as if elicited by Penfield's stimulation, and
were correctly predictable in nearly one hundred per cent of the
cases. Wright conducted 17 several experiments in which "voluntary"
decisions were determined by factors of which the subjects were
unconscious (UNABLE TO COMMUNICATE). In one, for example, des-
serts on a dining-hall serving-table were so arranged that, though
the subjects were allowed to choose any of the plates, with great
frequency they took one from a certain part of the serving-table.
In all Wright's studies the subjects had a feeling of free, voluntary
decision, but their acts were nevertheless determined by the circum-
stances of their environment.

Arguing from this and Penfield's work, we can suggest that, if
stimuli reach a particular part of the brain or follow a certain path
(areas not stimulated by Penfield), the resulting actions of the
organism seem voluntary, whether they are or not. Vigilance here
gives the subjective feeling of volition. If other regions are inner-
vated, the resulting actions consciously seem involuntary.

THE COMMON-SENSE CRITERION OF VOLUNTARY ACTION

When the man in the street says that something he did was un-
conscious^ he means primarily INVOLUNTARY, though he may use the
word also in other senses, like UNATTENDED, NOT INVOLVING INSIGHT,
or UNREMEMBERED. He therefore often judges that the behavior of
someone else must have been unconscious (INVOLUNTARY), because

w N. Ach, Ubcr die Entstehung dcs Bcwusstscins dcr Willcnsfrcihcit, in Bencht it. d. X.
Kong. /. expcr. Psycho]., Jena: Fischer, 1928, 91-7.

17 H. F. Wright, The influence of barriers upon strength of motivation, Contrib. to
Psychol. Theory, I, 1937, No. 3.

THE COMMON-SENSE CRITERION OF VOLUNTARY ACTION 263

he is confident that the individual would not have performed it
voluntarily. Such a judgment involves an evaluation of motivations
for and against the act. In that lies its uncertainty, for there is no
certain way to make an accurate evaluation of the strength of any
motivation. Frequently when this criterion is used the judges of
another's actions do not make allowance for covert or unrecognized
needs of the other person, or for their own ignorance of what the
other individual really desires. It might be argued, for instance, that
a novelist who repeatedly describes his characters by a single phrase
does it unconsciously (ACTING INVOLUNTARILY), because he never
would allow such a recurrence if he recognized it. The New Yorker
magazine has made a point in recent years from time to time of
copying from novels by well-known writers phrases which are used
over and over in this manner. One writer recently pictured almost
every male character in her story with a nose that had once been
broken. Any statement that this was involuntary assumes that the
author accepted conventional styles of diction, and did not repeat
for a specific effect, was not employing a Leitmotif. If such alterna-
tive explanations can be ruled out by making a probability judgment
of their likelihood, this common-sense criterion becomes scien-
tifically valuable.

No experiments employing this common-sense criterion of un-
conscious (INVOLUNTARY) processes have been published, but it was
used incidentally in one research of Newhall and Rodnick's. 18 These
experimenters studied the threshold under circumstances in which
it was necessary at various times to use various amounts of pressure
to signal the presence of stimuli. They found that even moderate
differences in the required pressure altered the data obtained. They
concluded that this result indicated 19 "that the so-called principle
of least effort may operate unintentionally or unconsciously." They
assumed that this alteration was unconscious (INVOLUNTARY), be-
cause the subjects presumably wished to make as accurate judgments

18 S. M. Newhall and E. H. Rodnick, The influence of the repor ting-response upon the
report, Amer. J. Psychol., 48, 1936, 316-25.

19 Ibtd., 325. By permission of the American Journal of Psychology.

264 INVOLUNTARY UNCONSCIOUSNESS

of the threshold as possible, and would have tried to allow for the
bias resulting from the necessary increased pressure if they had
realized that it existed.

Significant use of this same sort of argument was made in work
done by Cabot, an undergraduate at Harvard, under the direction
of Barker. 20 A spot on a table at which they were sitting was shown
to children who were subjects. They were then blindfolded and
asked to place tokens on the table as near the spot as they could.
They were told that if they achieved a certain high score they
would be given in reward something they desired a great deal, as
a pair of skates. The reward was shown to them, and then, with
apparent carelessness, put down on one side of the table or the
other. Under various pretenses the reward was moved, from time to
time, from one side of the table to the other. It was found that the
subjects erred from the center in the direction of the reward, i.e., to
the left if it lay on the left side of the desk. It is obvious that, if the
subject were conscious that he was making this error, he would have
allowed for it. The erring action, therefore, was unconscious (INVOL-
UNTARY); also, since the subject could not report that his behavior
was affected by the location of the reward it was also unconscious
(INCOMMUNICABLE) .

This work has some similarities to the studies of involuntary
movements with the automatograph, the scientific Ouija board,
carried on by Jastrow and West 21 and by Tucker 2 " in the iSgo's,
and by many others since. The subject's hand rested on the movable
horizontal board, which he tried to keep steady. A pen attached to
the platform recorded all movements. It was constantly found that
the subject's hand moved the board slightly toward whatever he
attended to, and that this movement was involuntary. Jastrow said 23

20 A. T. Cabot, The Influence of Changing the Position of a Primary Valence upon the
Path of Approach to an Induced Valence, 1938, thesis for honors, on file at the Depart-
ment of Psychology, Harvard University.

21 J. Jastrow and H. West, A study of involuntary movements, Amer. J. Psychol., 4,
1892, 398-407.

22 M. A. Tucker, Comparative observations on the involuntary movements of adults
and children, Amer. f. Psychol., 8, 1897, 394-404.

23 J. Jastrow and H. West, op. cit., 407. By permission of the American Journal of
Psychology.

THE COMMON-SENSE CRITERION OF VOLUNTARY ACTION 265

that the consensus of the subjects' reports in his research showed
that sometimes they suddenly recognized that their hands had
moved, and that "the movements are sometimes unconscious but
always involuntary, there is often great surprise at the result." This
is introspective support for the distinction between unconscious
(INVOLUNTARY) and unconscious (INCOMMUNICABLE or UNAVAILABLE
TO AWARENESS).

Any evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, it is still generally
believed that, if an act is conscious, it is voluntary and, if it is not
conscious, it is involuntary. Recently, for instance, a professor, not
of psychology, was heard to say, "Whether or not he did it con-
sciously is not the problem. The difficulty is that the damage was
done." The context of this remark made it apparent that con-
sciously to him meant having the communicable subjective feeling
of free voluntary choice in the matter.

Our laws, as well as our common speech, reflect the equation of
volition and consciousness. The fundamental maxim of old Anglo-
Saxon law was that a man acts at his peril and only his acts and
their consequences can be taken into account in meting out justice.
Today our courts are concerned with determining what the de-
fendant intended as well as what he did, for, if a man commits a
homicide without intending to do it, he can properly be regarded
as less of a menace to society than a wilful murderer.

In the legal proof of intent, of voluntary decision to commit a
crime, it has become necessary to show that the person was fully
conscious when the decision was made. In the case of Hopt v.
People, 24 the United States Supreme Court decided that the jury
may consider evidence that the defendant was intoxicated at the
time of the crime in deciding whether he was capable of deliberate
premeditation. An implication of this decision seems to be that
under ordinary circumstances what is conscious is voluntary.

Perhaps this is the best practical attitude for the law to take, but
psychology has shown that a great deal of behavior that is conscious
(COMMUNICABLE) is demonstrably involuntary in the sense that it is

24 Hopt v. People, 104 U. S. 631.

266 INVOLUNTARY UNCONSCIOUSNESS

determined by external rather than intraorganismic stimulation.
Subliminal stimuli or the general character of the situation (as in
the study of the choice of desserts in the cafeteria) have been experi-
mentally proved to be such extraorganismic determinants. It may
be that subjects report a conviction that they are making free
choices when the objective facts of the case prove they are not, but
such convictions are often illusory. Perhaps always.

CONCLUSIONS

From the layman's point of view the capacity for voluntary deci-
sion is the chief subjective characteristic of consciousness. Many
psychologists have agreed with him, but there is little modern re-
search on consciousness (VOLUNTARY) and unconsciousness (INVOL-
UNTARY). It has been shown that there is a reliable subjective dif-
ference between voluntary and involuntary acts, and that there is a
workable common-sense criterion for judging what behavior of
others is voluntary and what is involuntary. There is also proof of a
definite distinction between unconsciousness (INVOLUNTARY) and
unconsciousness (UNAVAILABLE TO AWARENESS or INCOMMUNICABLE).

CHAPTER XII
INCOMMUNICABLE UNCONSCIOUSNESS

Throughout the preceding chapters the most frequently employed
criterion to differentiate conscious and unconscious (SEVERAL MEAN-
INGS) states has been'communicability. Usually, if an act or thought
can be verbally reported, it is supposed to be conscious, and otherwise
it is not. Communication comprehends more than verbalization, for
it includes gestures and even the telltale, involuntary expression of
the thief who in the police line-up recognizes the man he robbed. If
behavior indicates what a person knows, it is communication. Im-
mediate verbal report is the most important sort, however, and will
be discussed in this chapter more than other kinds.

Many of the experiments which have been recounted in previous
chapters have involved the assumption that, if the subjects when
questioned say they do not perceive a certain stimulus, they are
unconscious (UNABLE TO COMMUNICATE) of it. This is true of many
determinations of psychophysical limens, reports on the span of
attention, or recalls of memorized material. Throughout all of psy-
chology immediate verbal report is the most widely used index, and
probably the most satisfactory, 1 of what is in another person's con-

1 Thc scientific usefulness of this index of verbal report is illustrated by the following
examples of significant experiments chosen at random from those discussed in this book, in
which introspective communications have been used effectively to produce important results:
Penficld's electrical stimulation of the cortex in a conscious patient (cf. pp. 66-67), dem-
onstrating that there is a subjective difference between voluntary and involuntary behavior.
Cushmg's similar experiments (cf. p. 101) in stimulating the brains of conscious patients.
Dorcus's comparison (cf. pp. 118-119) of the subjective feelings and objective physiological
signs in subjects to whom it was suggested under hypnosis that they were being rotated and
carrying out other activities. Jacobson's study (cf. p. 133) of the effect of muscular relaxa-
tion upon reverie. Bressler's work (cf. p. 151) on the Muller-Lyer illusion using arrows sub-
liminally different from the background. Baker's experiment (cf. pp. 151-152) on the in-
fluence of subliminal stimuli upon verbal behavior. Huntley's investigation (cf. pp. 156-157)

267

268 INCOMMUNICABLE UNCONSCIOUSNESS

sciousness (AWARE OF DISCRIMINATION). Many of the senses of
unconscious for instance, UNSENSING, SUBLIMINAL STIMULI AFFECTING

ORGANISM, UNATTENDING, UNREMEMBERING, ACTING INVOLUNTARILY

which have been reviewed in previous chapters are dependent upon
verbal report. Unless the individual will communicate without long
reflection, and do so in a reliable manner, it is impossible for any-
one else to ascertain whether or not he is unconscious in these usages.
If, for example, a subject will not tell promptly when the light
before him becomes bright enough to see, his limen can never be
determined.

Hundreds of experimental investigations have studied the effects
of factors, concerning which the subjects have no communicable
knowledge, upon their actions. The sheer mass of this research for-
bids any analysis of it here, although it has led to the statement of
many laws about unconscious (INCOMMUNICABLE) behavior. Much
of it deals with the alterations in attitudes and activities which result
from unrecognized social suggestion, from the presence of other
persons in the environment. The work explores, among other things,
the control of conduct by suggestion or hypnosis; the influence of
prestige, majority, and expert opinion on supposedly "unbiased"
judgments; unrecognized imitation and emulation; and the effect
of membership in various sorts of groups upon the rate and effi-
ciency of completing tasks. In the table on pages 270 and 271 of this
chapter, a few characteristic researches of this sort are summarized.

of judgments of one's own forms of expression. Pauli's attempt (cf. pp. 167-168) to show
the mutual exclusivcncss of conscious processes. NcwhalPs study (cf. p. 169) of the eflcct
of attention on discrimination. Gurat/sch's work (cf. pp. 170-171) on clearness in various
parts of the visual field. Laucnstcm's findings (cf. pp. 219-220) on the time-error. Bart-
lett's work (cf. p. 223) on reproducing memorized passages at various intervals. Aall's study
(cf. pp. 223-224) of the effect on recall of the expectation of the learner. Zeigarmk's dem-
onstration (cf. pp. 224-225) that unfinished tasks are remembered better than finished tasks.
Sharp's research (cf. pp. 254-255) on repression of unacceptable phrases. Wright's experi-
ments (cf. p. 262) on the determination of "voluntary" decisions by unconscious (INCOM-
MUNICABLE) factors. Sherif's researches (cf. p. 271) on the effects of social suggestion in
setting frames of reference for perception.

WIDE ACCEPTANCE OF COMMUNICABILITY CRITERION 269

COMMUNICABILITY WIDELY ACCEPTED AS EVIDENCE
OF CONSCIOUSNESS

The diversity of the theoretical positions of those who support
communicability as an index of consciousness is remarkable. Some
question that consciousness has a demonstrable existence aside from
the actual act of communication. Others inquire whether one may
not be aware of something he cannot put into words. There is, how-
ever, general agreement that one is almost always aware of what
one puts into words. The agreement about communicability, though,
has been more apparent than real, for the interpretations of this
criterion have differed markedly.

Watson has said: 2 "In the place of the Freudian unconscious the
behavior ist substitutes the unverbalized. He has a contrasting term,
too the verbalized"" Here he was maintaining that the only sense
in which it is significant to use the adjective conscious is to describe
that which is overtly communicated or, as he limited the state-
ment, verbalized.

The original stand of the behaviorists that consciousness is verbal
behavior was later modified by the recognition that all sorts of
behavior are equally indicative of consciousness. Markey represented' 1
this later belief, and concluded from evidence that there is not al-
ways motion of the tongue in thought, that the motor activity of
consciousness may temporarily drop out and thought be carried on
through central nervous short cuts and connections. He thought it
likely, however, that overt language habits have to be organized
before this can occur. Hunter came 4 as close as any behaviorist to
equating verbalization with consciousness when he said that, if a
sensory process leads to language response, that is consciousness.

In his definition of consciousness the behaviorist is a strict em-
piricist, taking nothing for granted: There must be behavior to indi-
cate consciousness. In deviating from this dictum many have erred.

2 J. B. Watson, The myth of the unconscious, Harper's, 155, 1927, 503.
3 J. F. Markey, The place of language habits in a bchavioriitic explanation of conscious*
ness, Psychol. Rev., 32, 1925, 390-1.

4 W. S. Hunter, The symbolic process, Psychol. Rev., 31, 1924, 478.

270

INCOMMUNICABLE UNCONSCIOUSNESS

stiff!*

s l w

-? A

^ E -5 ^
S 2 -

HH C Ctf 43

t O

H I-S

; i*- tC

E S

<u 2
to

8 g

!*!

- g a

tj-g 3

S & i s

w.S 8 6

jffili

3 5 u .si c

a 5 5 .^ *2 ^ **

|J!&

d M

u. " 4> .

^ & 9 S
a- * 2

2i1s4

td s'S'SS

da&5^S

5 .^ A,

w J3 . M*

a w ti

fi.l.a9

WIDE ACCEPTANCE OF COMMUNICABILITY CRITERION

271

-lllSHl'-is

- ^ijj- -! i c
fl^lf *|11|f 4

"Sl^il Ss'i STJ-sIt

"g^ |^ 3 S "5^ 2 ^"3

tCo^ tii'c cJfS ^<-^

; S o-S 2 | S *^JS

!!HII!SlI

ilpllliil"
i^lllPiP

S .S ~* |S S <

lcf|-ig||l^-fi|

sllsJiis^lii

-sS-i'sl^'S^'s-s
g-siS^fi- 3 ^- 3

rt "Q^-CJ i !.rf .. C3

1-s
Iti

'Hi
II!

^ g 6 S

*G v> i->
* c *o

6.2

-> rt

tJ S^3 8

^|^S!

W M ^ 3 -i

w.S

272 INCOMMUNICABLE UNCONSCIOUSNESS

A student of physics, asked to explain the operation of a gas meter,
mentions the necessity of applying the gas laws of Boyle and Gay-
Lussac in the computations. He hopes that on the grounds of this
vague reference the teacher will assume that he knows what those
laws are. The teacher will not be a good empiricist unless he asks
the student what they are. One may not assume communicability
without testing it by communication.

Behaviorists are wrong, however, in insisting that crude com-
munication, rather than communicability, is a test of consciousness.
A spy may not tell anyone what the secret naval treaty he stole con-
tains, but that does not mean he does not know its terms. While
one may not assume that, because a stenographer who is applying
for a job knows how to multiply two by three, she also knows how
to multiply nineteen by seventeen, the reverse judgment is certainly
legitimate. In most situations for example in a clinical examination
it is not practically feasible to discover everything a patient can
report. A sampling method must be used, and, on the basis of rela-
tively few communications, judgments as to what is communicable
must be made. It is the potentiality that is important.

This broader notion of communicability, rather than mere com-
munication, is what most psychologists not of Watson's school have
defended as a criterion of awareness. The classical introspectionists,
for instance, frequently postulated communicability of conscious-
ness. Their introspective method was an attempt to obtain a com-
plete description of consciousness during various activities, but they
did not appreciate the importance of the practical limitations upon
report.

Psychoanalysts also consider communicability a significant index
of consciousness/' The body of Freudian statements bearing upon
this question must be interpreted to hold that the potentiality of
communicating some fact, rather than the actual communication of
it, is the indication that the fact is conscious. Unlike the introspec-
tionists, moreover, the psychoanalysts recognize that there are social

5 C/. S. Freud, The Basic Writings of Signutnd Ftcttd> cd. A. A. Brill, New York:
Random Hou^c, 1938 (The Interpretation of Dreams), 542.

WIDE ACCEPTANCE OF COMMUNICABILITY CRITERION 273

forces which limit communications. The super-ego is the agency
that determines what the individual dare say and what he may not
report. It is the representation within him of the taboos he has
learned from other people, his parents, teachers, leaders, and ac-
quaintances.

Many who have a practical, clinical approach to the problems of
consciousness and unconsciousness are unable to agree wholly with
behaviorists, introspectionists, or psychoanalysts. A clinician of this
sort is Murray, a self-styled "dynamic psychologist." He explained in
the following paragraphs what he meant by unconscious?

Whatever a subject can report upon is considered conscious; every-
thing else which, by inference, was operating in the rcgnancy ["a
dynamically organized temporal segment of brain processes"] is con-
sidered unconscious. According to this convenient pragmatic criterion,
consciousness depends upon verbalization. Thus, conscious facts (for
the experimenter) arc limited to those which the subject is able to
recall. Consequently, in all organisms below man every regnant vari-
able, being unverbalizable, is treated as if it were unconscious.

. . . The manifestations of unconscious needs are usually rational-
ized or "explained away" by the subject. They are attributed to an-
other need or to some other factor : habit, convention, imitation, bad
influence, etc. As a general rule, unconscious needs arc in opposition
to the social personality. Together they constitute what has been
called the alter ego, a partly dissociated self, composed of tendencies
that are not "let out" in everyday life. . . .

In the present study we became less interested as time went on
in conscious overt behavior it was obvious and the subject knew
about it and increasingly absorbed in the exploration of unconscious
complexes.

In this statement we find at the beginning that communicability
is the criterion advanced to define what is conscious. In order to
show how objective was his approach and in order to adhere to his
definition, Murray stated that all regnant variables in animals below
man must be considered unconscious, because unverbalizable. (Like
Watson, he restricted his criterion to verbal communicability.)

H. A. Murray et al., Explorations in Personality. New York: Oxford University Press,
1938, 113-4. By permission of Oxford University Press, New York.

274 INCOMMUNICABLE UNCONSCIOUSNESS

Later he said: "As a general rule unconscious needs are in opposi-
tion to the social personality." He thus recognized that social forces
arc important limiters of communication, which fact is in no way
contradictory to his former criterion of verbalizability. At the end,
however, he seems to imply that one knows about conscious overt
behavior but that he does not know about unconscious (INCOM-
MUNICABLE) behavior. This conclusion reflects a belief that no trou-
ble is encountered in getting a subject to tell all he knows.

Such an assumption, that what they are unable to get the patient
to verbalize is therefore not in his awareness, appears frequently in
the utterances of practical clinicians. While they recognize the part
of social factors in repressing material entirely below the level of
consciousness, they appear to neglect the consideration that these
factors frequently keep information, of which the patient is con-
scious and upon which he acts knowingly, from being communi-
cable even in the psychiatric interview. In evaluating communi-
cability as a means of distinguishing what is conscious from what
is not, we must consider, then, the social limitations upon it. Neither
behaviorist nor introspectionist has allowed for them, and psycho-
analysts or clinicians have by no means always evaluated them
properly.

DIFFICULTIES OF THE COMMUNICABILITY CRITERION

The widespread support of the ability to communicate as a sign
of consciousness (AVAILABLE TO AWARENESS or OTHER MEANINGS) does
not signify that this criterion is foolproof or all-sufficient. In many
specific instances this sense of consciousness is diametrically opposed
to all other meanings. For example, a girl may blush at a statement
unawares, but her companion will nevertheless have fathomed the
secret betrayed by her behavior. In any ordinary use of the word
she was unconscious (e.g., UNAWARE OF DISCRIMINATION), still, be-
cause one sort of act that conveys meaning may not be called com-
munication while another is not so considered, the young lady's
blush must be called conscious (COMMUNICABLE). This dizzying

DIFFICULTIES OF THE COMMUNICABILITY CRITERION 275

inversion of the usual understanding of the word may well make
one wonder just what sort of communication is a criterion of con-
sciousness. Again, patients under such anesthetics as scopolamine
make communications which they cannot remember a little later.
This circumstance also occurs to a degree, as has already been seen,
in cases of dissociation like Janet's Irene (cf. p. 63) and of abnor-
malities of memory following upon blows on the head (cf. pp. 127-
128). In all these cases the criterion of communicability as evidence
of unconsciousness (UNAVAILABLE TO AWARENESS) conflicts with the
criterion of memory, and whether one, the other, or both are "true"
tests is a hard problem.

When a person has aphasia and is unable to use speech or under-
stand it properly, usually because of neurological lesions, he is un-
conscious (UNABLE TO COMMUNICATE) if verbalization is to be the
basis of judgment. It would be difficult to convince even those who
have advocated this criterion that these patients are unconscious in
any usual meaning of the word. Case XVI of Chapter II (pp. 68-
69) is one of Head's famous aphasia patients. He was able to do all
sorts of things people cannot do when they are UNDISCRIMINATING,

UNSENSING, UNATTENDING, INSIGHTLESS, UNREMEMBERING, Or UNAWARE

OF DISCRIMINATION. Certainly in the kingdom of the deaf, dumb, and
blind an intelligent aphasic like Major X would be king.

Head also reported 7 that several of his patients could indicate by
gestures the ground plan and location of furniture in a room familiar
to them, but could not express in words the spatial relationships
between these objects. Alford told 8 of a man who had the charac-
teristic signs of a jargon aphasia, mumbling unintelligibly but with
apparent purpose, as if in a foreign language. He could perform
many acts, though impulsively, such as feeding himself. He was
alert to his surroundings; he would greet a friend with bodily activ-
ity and attempts at speech; he would contort his face when told to
put out his tongue; and once he was able to find the name of his

7 E.g., H. Head, Aphasia, New York: Macmillan, 1926, I, 264, 339, and 393.
8 L. B. Alford, Localization of consciousness and emotion, Amer. /. Psychiat., 12,
1933, 792-3-

276 INCOMMUNICABLE UNCONSCIOUSNESS

stock in the financial section of the daily paper. Concerning this
man Alford wrote 9 that if "awareness pure and simple" were the
criterion, this patient appeared to him to be conscious, for he could
scarcely believe that the patient could otherwise do what he did.

The aphasias demonstrate better than any other phenomenon the
major fault of the communicability index. It is not a special sign of
consciousness (DISCRIMINATING), for any behavior whatsoever sig-
nifies discrimination. Rather communication is the act of conveying
some meaning as subjectively understood from one person to an-
other. The potentiality implied by the word communicability in-
volves a subjective reference, for there can be no objectively observed
potential act if it is observed it is not potential but actual. If com-
municability is, then, a criterion of consciousness in the subjective
sense, it is supposed to be a sign of the presence of consciousness
(AVAILABLE TO AWARENESS) which has been seen in Chapter I (p. 43)
to be the fundamental introspective meaning for consciousness
what Alford in the reference mentioned above called "awareness
pure and simple." Speech is certainly not always being carried on
when consciousness (AVAILABLE TO AWARENESS) is present, as the
aphasias show, nor is any other simultaneous act of communication
necessary. Neither communication nor the possibility of communi-
cation is in itself subjective consciousness or even an infallible sign
of the presence of such consciousness. In the light of the facts of
aphasia any denial of this dictum is merely one of the "extrava-
gances in the motor theories of consciousness." 10 Any sort of be-
havior is only the "outward and visible sign" of an inward, sub-
jective AWARENESS OF DISCRIMINATION.

Another of the faults in the equation of communicability and
consciousness (AVAILABLE TO AWARENESS) is based upon the inade-
quacy of words to convey thought. Bergson, 11 Whitehead, 12 and
many others have made note of the unsatisfactory description of

9 ibid., 793.

10 Cf. H. C. McComas, Extravagances in the motor theories of consciousness, Psychol.
Rev., 23, 1916, 397-406.

11 H. Bergson, Time and Free Will, New York: Macmillan, IQIO, 162-3.

12 E.g., A. N. Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas, New York: Macmillan, 1933, 209-10.

SOCIAL EFFECTS ON COMMUNICATION 277

the rapidly flowing, complex stream of consciousness which words
convey. Language is an inexpert stenographer, lagging always be-
hind the dictation of subjective experience, often omitting items or
making mistakes. Because their only resource was language, the
introspectionists were forced to divide into several parts their sub-
jective reports on even such a simple reaction as a judgment between
two lights. In some trials they would introspect on conscious ex-
perience which occurred at the time of expectation of the stimuli; in
other trials, on that at the time of the stimulus; in others, on that at
the time of the judgment; and so forth. Even by this method of
fractionation their descriptions were far short of what could be
desired. In the ways that speech, the best of all methods of com-
munication, is unsatisfactory, the criterion of communicability is
also limited.

The subject-object logic has persisted in our grammar, which
Aristotle first formalized, and all our verbalization must be fitted
into that logical format. The general uncomprehending reception
of "stream of consciousness" literature as exemplified by James
Joyce indicates that we find great difficulty understanding com-
munications in any syntax form more "irrational" than our usual
form. The difficulty which is commonly manifested in putting into
words private experience as it occurs (which is the problem of the
"stream of consciousness" writers) shows that uncommunicated ex-
perience is not ready-made in subject-object relationships. The
necessity of employing grammatical structures whenever verbali-
zation is used to tell what is conscious from what is not is a further
limitation upon the criterion of communicability. The fact, more-
over, that many vague feelings and sensations have no generally
accepted words to convey them is still another drawback.

SOCIAL DISTORTION AND LIMITATION OF COMMUNICATION

The pressure continually exerted upon the individual to make
his private experience part of the public experience is one of the
major factors tending to distort his communications. This force

278 INCOMMUNICABLE UNCONSCIOUSNESS

exerted upon him to relate things which he does not wish to share
often results in distortions of his communication, so that it no longer
mirrors his experience. "Ask me no questions and I'll tell you no
lies." For a multitude of reasons the exigencies of communal living
require some to try to penetrate the private experience of others by
questions. The common code requires some sort of answers to these
questions, but it can never force the truth. In this fact lies the retreat
of the individual and the final balking of social endeavors, one of
which, incidentally, is science. Other members of his society may
and usually do brand him abnormal a hermit, a schizophrenic
but they cannot force him, if ostracism does not break down his soli-
tude.

The witness swears that he will tell the truth, the whole truth,
and nothing but the truth. Unless he is reporting events which others
saw also, there can be no check other than internal consistency upon
whether he keeps his oath. If others must know the truth, motiva-
tional probabilities must be considered, and perhaps motivations
increased, as by the rack of the Inquisition. Communication forced
by the third degree has, of course, long been recognized to be
unsatisfactory. Which, if either, of two conflicting confessions by
the same person is true can be discussed interminably and remain
forever unanswered, for the private experience of each individual
is inviolate except with his co-operation.

A court tries to get a newspaper reporter to tell the source of his
story. He refuses and goes to jail for contempt. A government tor-
tures captured prisoners for information about the troop move-
ments of their country. On the other hand, society considers it best
that priests and lawyers be allowed to keep confidences sacred.
Many problems of government deal with the question of just how
much of private experience can legally be outside and how much
within public knowledge, presuming that the individual will accede
to law or to force.

The excitement of the detective's chase and the reflected glamour
of detective novels lie in discovering what is hidden in someone's
private experience. Demands for action on the part of society, to

THE CULTURAL MOLDING OF COMMUNICATIONS 279

protect itself from its criminal members, force it to act on probabil-
ities rather than direct evidence. If the accused will not let society
into his privacy, there are no effective tactics but siege. When he
does speak, if he cannot be checked no one can be certain that he
has told the truth. Private experience is forever nonscientific, unless
introspective communications can be so controlled as to be scien-
tifically admissible.

If a conqueror tries to enforce co-operation from the vanquished,
sabotage frequently results instead. Similarly the individual, to pro-
tect his own integrity, may readily sabotage the attempt of others
to pry into his affairs, whether in court or in the most private psy-
chiatric interview. Communications of a patient or a subject, which
he might possibly think would prejudice his integrity, are not reli-
able. As yet we have no "lie detector" which can indicate at all
satisfactorily when deviations from fact occur or what kind they
are. It will probably be a long time before there is found a weapon
adequate to breach the individual's wall of privacy. Long practice
in dealing with people may enable some wise men to make a shrewd
guess about what the private facts are, but this is never certainty.

THE FITTING OF COMMUNICATIONS TO THE CULTURAL MOLD

Each culture develops its own norm for what may and may not
be communicated. One may say that brothers look alike in America,
but may not in the Trobriand Islands. 13 Mekeel has told 14 of a boy
in a large city who attacked his father with a knife because he was
told to by spiritual voices. The attending psychiatrist thought these
facts made the diagnosis of the boy's condition obvious until he
learned that the boy's whole family heard the spirits. They were
American Indians, and the hearing of voices was an accepted oc-
currence in their tribe. All the members of a culture are restrained
from saying certain things and encouraged to express others, and

13 Cf. B. Malmowski, The Sexual Life of Savages, London: Routlcclgc and Sons, 1929,
174-5.

14 H. S. Mekeel, Clinic and culture, /. Abnorm. and Soc. Psychol., 30, 1935, 292.

280 INCOMMUNICABLE UNCONSCIOUSNESS

so develop characteristic verbal habits. The restrictions caused by
these habits modify their communications.

Sherif has shown experimentally 15 that other members of a group,
the social environment, can determine the perception of the indi-
vidual of what he will be conscious and on what he will report.
Social groups decide by convention what interpretations will be put
upon the environment and natural phenomena, and the individual
must see them thus or else. . . . Galileo did not verbalize the uni-
verse as did the Church, and the Church was not satisfied until he
conformed. What his private experience was thereafter no one could
tell. If communicability is to be the sole criterion, most individuals
interpret things as their society sees them. In the Anuak tribe of
the Sudan, if a man faints or is knocked unconscious and returns to
normality, he is automatically a medicine man. From then on he
must talk to spirits under the buffalo rug, or be ostracized or killed.
There is little question that spirits would be in the "consciousness" of
most people under these conditions. There are intercultural differ-
ences in the degree of variation from the norm which is tolerated
without stigma. A scientist would have been unhappy in the Middle
Ages, because his oversuspicion of the dicta of the Church would
have put him in Galileo's company.

As a culture gains organized power, it not only serves as a frame
of reference for what the individual will communicate, but it also
begins a censorship which is in many ways similar to modern war-
time censorship. Such a cultural censorship inhibits the individual
from behavior words and acts which he would otherwise per-
form. There are at least three possible reasons for such a check to
activity: (a) The majority obtain a common advantage by protect-
ing certain rights, and therefore rules for deciding between con-
flicting desires among different persons are established. () Certain
racial or cultural inhibitions exist which, approved or not by the
majority, give the ruling minority certain advantages. Or (c) taboos

15 M. Sherif, A study of some social factors in perception, Arc h. of Psychol., 27, 1935, No.
187. Cf. also table in this chapter, p. 271.

THE CULTURAL MOLDING OF COMMUNICATIONS 281

that no longer give anyone any advantages persist because of the
inertia of custom.

A child raised by apes on a desert island would be able to com-
municate different things from a child raised in America. The island
child when grown would have fewer or at least different restric-
tions, so if it developed language it would make explicit many more
of its desires than an American child, especially a child of the Vic-
torian period.

Freud has an anthropomorphic censor in his theoretical uncon-
sciousness (PSYCHOANALYTIC MEANING). He recognizes mechanisms
in human behavior which parallel the functions carried on by the
socially appointed censor. Just as it is difficult to discover a person's
true thoughts from a letter which has passed through censorship,
so it is difficult to discover his true motives when he is subjected to
social stress. Freud said 10 that this discovery can be made when one
knows what the censor wants to repress, for then one can read
deductively between the lines. This statement is not strictly true,
because one can never be sure that the material of which the censor
would have disapproved ever had been written so that it could be
blue-penciled. The blocking of communications by social barriers
is not so easy to circumvent as Freud seemed to believe.

In psychoanalyses the analyst often meets with periods of resist-
ance and blocking of the verbal communication. Freud frequently
insisted 17 that such resistance is practically certain indication that
something is being repressed, something which must be allowed
to break through before the analysis can proceed satisfactorily. It is
difficult to see how one can be sure when there is something to be
repressed. The absence of a policeman at a busy intersection does
not in itself prove that an officer has been forcibly detained and
prevented from going there. No policeman may have been detailed
to that corner, and a patient may have nothing in a certain region
of his personality to conceal. If there is, perhaps, something in that
region of the patient's personality, it may be perfectly conscious

16 S. Freud, op. cit. (The Interpretation of Dreams), 223-5.

17 E.g., S. Freud, op. cit. (The History of the Psychoanalytic Movement), 939.

282 INCOMMUNICABLE UNCONSCIOUSNESS

(AVAILABLE TO AWARENESS) and even communicable to a friend
closer than the analyst.

Psychoanalysis is a social phenomenon, and in it, as in all social
relationships no matter how intimate, some cultural censorship,
super-ego inhibitions, remain to suppress communication. The cen-
sor of the culture can insinuate himself into the analyst-patient rela-
tionship as he does into any other. A certain patient was psycho-
analyzed and promised to tell the analyst everything. In spite of his
promise he systematically concealed one part of his life from the
analyst. Later he told the whole story (?) to someone else, and it
seemed apparent that what he had concealed was the key to the
distortion of his personality. It is vain to hope that the two levels of
organization of personality, conscious and unconscious (PSYCHO-
ANALYTIC MEANING), may be adequately differentiated merely on the
basis of whether or not the material is communicable in the analytic
session. One can never be certain in any given case that the social
barriers have been broken through.

THE DEMAND OF WESTERN CULTURE THAT
COMMUNICATION BE RATIONAL

Social groups also establish set forms in which whatever expres-
sion is allowed must be formulated. Just as the Mikado must never
be looked down on from above and must never suffer the indignity
of having others turn their backs to him, so, as many dieorists have
said, the Western culture, as well as certain others, specifies that
whatever one says must be rational. (Rational as used here and else-
where throughout the chapter means having a logical format. Any
series of statements which does not assert both a proposition and
its opposite, or violate other such rules of logic, is rational or logical.
Rationalization as commonly used means making a logical explana-
tion of how certain of one's acts or statements follow from specific
desires or purposes.)

Various psychologists have frequently insisted that this enforced
rationality makes the communicated greatly different from the

THE DEMAND THAT COMMUNICATION BE RATIONAL 283

uncommunicated. Whether it is the act of communication that
shapes thought into rational form, or whether only rational mate-
rial is communicable and what is irrational must forever remain
unconscious (INCOMMUNICABLE and PSYCHOANALYTIC MEANING),
these theorists do not agree. It is the Freudian doctrine that uncon-
scious (PSYCHOANALYTIC MEANING) processes are irrational, but are
clothed in seeming logicality before being communicated. Freud
said: 18

Thus, the psychic agency which approaches the dream-content
with the demand that it must be intelligible, which subjects it to a
first interpretation, and in doing so leads to the complete misunder-
standing of it, is none other than our normal thought. In our in-
terpretation the rule will be, in every case, to disregard the apparent
coherence of the dream as being of suspicious origin and, whether
the elements are confused or clear, to follow the same regressive path
to the dream-material.

Delacroix has commented 10 that this interpretative process occurs
in the waking state as well as during dreaming, for everyone con-
tinually makes a logical co-ordination of his own sensations. Par-
ticularly apt is Ellis's description of the rationality of consciousness: 20
"Sleeping consciousness, we may even imagine as saying to itself
in effect: 'Here comes our master, Waking Consciousness, who at-
taches such mighty importance to reason and logic and so forth.
Quick! gather things up, put them in order any order will do
before he enters to take possession.' "

Freud, Delacroix, and Ellis are three of many who state that the
uncommunicated is irrational, while the communicated is rational.
As will be suggested in succeeding pages, they are incorrect in con-
sidering that the uncommunicated is irrational, but they have real-
ized the important truth that in the Western culture one must be
able on demand to communicate an explanation of the causes of his

18 S. Freud, op. cit. (The Interpretation of Dreams) , 463. By permission of Random
House, Inc.

18 H. Delacroix, Sur la structure logique du reve, Rev. de Mctaphys. et de Morale, 12,
1904, 926.

20 H. Ellis, The World of Dreams, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1911, 10-1.

284 INCOMMUNICABLE UNCONSCIOUSNESS

deeds. If the individual is to live at peace with his fellows, more-
over, his explanations of his acts must be framed so as to make them
appear to arise logically from standards or purposes which are con-
sidered proper in his society. In order to protect himself from the
wrath of this group, the individual often does not tell all he knows
about his desires, purposes, and acts, simply because he cannot make
them appear to follow rationally from the accepted principles of
his culture.

Why does communication in a social environment concerning
the reasons for one's actions assume a rational form consonant with
accepted usages? Is it because individual private experience and
behavior are likewise logical, or are the outward forms only chic
clothing for illogical nakedness? In answering these questions con-
sideration must be given to the arbitrary character of conditioning,
which is one factor engendering the false appearance that the un-
communicated is irrational and is poured into a rational mold when-
ever it is communicated.

THE ARBITRARY NATURE OF CONDITIONING

The fallacious presumption that a person knows and can tell why
he acts as he does is almost universal. One can get into hazardous
straits with his fellows or with the law by admitting that he does
not know why he performed some act. Usually the explanation of
behavior is that one is responding to conditioning set up at some
forgotten time in the past conditioning of which he has no longer
any inkling at all. If the original situation in which this condition-
ing was developed is not clear, then the connection between the
stimulus and the conditioned response will appear entirely arbitrary.

The parable of the Pavlovian's young laboratory helper illustrates
this point. This boy of eight earned his board and room by caring
for the professor's dogs. He relished the dogs' meat and would
always eat a little while he was giving it to the dogs. Thus he be-
came conditioned to salivate to a bell, just like the dogs. One Sun-
day when visiting his family he went to church with them. When

THE ARBITRARY NATURE OF CONDITIONING 285

the church bells began to ring, he began to salivate. His mother up-
braided him for it. Not realizing that the church bells were the
cause, he tried to explain that the thought of his coming Sunday
dinner had made him do it. His mother was not appeased, and,
when it happened another week, she punished him.

It is quite possible to become conditioned, to have that condi-
tioning determine behavior, and yet be unable to report that the
conditioning exists or what the conditioned stimulus is. After this
manner our affections often develop. An employer likes a girl apply-
ing for a position, but would not be able to tell why. He hires her,
however, and may never realize that he gave her the job because
she resembles his sister. Had he been able to report this fact, he
might, as a conscientious executive, not have hired her for fear of
being prejudiced. Again, suppose a woman overhears her physician
telling another doctor in consultation that her father took the gold
cure for alcoholism. Despite the truth of the statement and the
woman's sincere desire to be fair-minded as well as to benefit from
the consultation, she feels herself becoming angry. Her deep-seated
habit of admitting only pleasant connections with her father has
been disturbed.

The conditioning experiments of Jones have illustrated the genesis
of such "irrational" behavior. In one of these 21 the subject was a
little boy about three years old. For some unknown reason he was
afraid of rabbits and of other objects which seemed to him to re-
semble rabbits. At first a rabbit anywhere in the room would make
him show fear, but then he saw the rabbit when he was eating food
he liked, when he was with a man he liked, and when he was with
children who were not afraid of the animal. Step by step his fear was
deconditioned and finally he would fondle the rabbit affectionately
and allow it to nibble his fingers. His attitude toward objects which
he thought resembled rabbits changed markedly also.

These alterations in emotion are entirely arbitrary. If the food
had been unpleasant instead of good, the fear for the rabbit would
have been increased. It all depends on the concomitants of the situa-

21 M. C. Jones, A laboratory study of fear, Pedagog. Sem., 31, 1923, 308-15.

286 INCOMMUNICABLE UNCONSCIOUSNESS

tion, a relationship which, incidentally, is one factor explaining the
effectiveness of "pretty girl" advertisements. When the original
circumstances of conditioning have been forgotten, the pertinacity
of the conditioning makes the resulting behavior seem irrational
and inexplicable, but, as Anderson has said, 22 though in its final
form it appears difficult to explain, understanding of its origin
makes it comprehensible.

THE EFFECT OF RATIONALIZATION IN ALTERING REPORT

The social necessity for rationalization often causes a person to
report falsely the origins of his actions.

A child sitting at table begins to lose his balance because his chair
leg cracks. To keep from falling he grabs the table cloth, and so
pulls it toward him a few inches. A cup and saucer close to the
edge of the table fall off and are broken. The child's mother sees
the whole affair and slaps him so that he begins to cry. The father
reproaches the mother for slapping the child, and the mother
retorts, "He must learn to be more careful." It is obvious to the
"neutral observer" that the mother slapped the child because she
was angry that the cup and saucer were broken, and because the
only thing she could do about it was to punish the luckless, unre-
sponsible human instrument of the calamity. It was socially unac-
ceptable for her to admit this feeling of anger and resultant aggres-
sion, so she explained her action in a socially acceptable form,
however transparently false her words were.

Why is this an effective mechanism? Because of the unassail-
ability of private experience. Whatever one says about this region
must be accepted as true or as meaningless, because no one can
prove or disprove it. Everyone accepts the fact that there are indi-
vidual differences, and that some queer and incomprehensible things
are to be found in the privacies of some persons. There is, more-
over, a civilized convention that it is not courteous to question re-
ports of individuals about this region. When, therefore, the mother

23 J. E. Anderson, in C. M. Child et aL, The Unconscious: A Symposium, New York:
Knopf, 1929, 88.

THE IRRATIONALITY OF THE UNCOMMUNICATED 287

offers her explanation, her husband must accept the reply in good
faith if he is a gentleman and abides by the rules of the game. If
he is a run-of-the-mine husband or a scientific "impartial observer,"
he will say that the situation seemed to be more typical of anger and
assault than of detached punishment. To this the mother might
reply, "Well, I told you why I did it; prove it isn't so." She might
bolster this challenge with a reference to the common fallacy: "I
did it; I should be able to report what goes on in my body and
should know more about it than you." She knows the extreme diffi-
culty of dislodging her from such a position. Should she be coaxed
into admissions which finally sum up to show that she slapped the
child because she was angry at the breaking of the dishes, she can
still fall back to second-line trenches and insist, "Well, you don't
really understand why I did it. If you think I'm queer, you do some
peculiar things yourself."

THE IRRATIONALITY OF THE UNCOMMUNICATED AND
SOCIAL UNACCEPTABILITY

The mother has rationalized. Because of social demands, she has
quickly put her "unverbalized" into order and "any order will
do," as Ellis said (cf. p. 283). This sort of situation is explained by
Murphy, Murphy, and Newcomb in true psychoanalytic tradition
as follows: 23

As one confronts a social situation requiring thought, the logical
and the autistic are blended. The words are reasonable, but the tune
is the irrational melody of desire. One tries, for example, to see a
"tempting offer" as if it were a sound proposal. One says with half
a smile that he "hopes to rationalize" his decision to take a two
months' vacation. The despot proves that his control is necessary to
the welfare of his people.

But where in the illustration of the mother and the child is the
evidence for this "irrational melody of desire"? The attack on the
child is perfectly logical, granted a basic desire to preserve one's

23 G. Murphy, L. B. Murphy, and T. M. Newcomb, Experimental Social Psychology,
rev. ed., New York: Harper, 1937, 223. By permission of Harper & Brothers.

288 INCOMMUNICABLE UNCONSCIOUSNESS

property. The mother simply would not admit that her act was
motivated by this desire, because society would not approve such
savage egoism. Rationalization is not, as so many hold, bringing
pseudo-logical order out of a suppressed chaos which is an irra-
tional mass of contradictions. From the analysis of the illustration,
rather, the following redefinition can be obtained: Rationalization
is the description in culturally acceptable terms of an act arising
from motives not approved by the members of society, or from
motives which one is unwilling to admit publicly. It may also occur
if one has to explain actions whose motivation is based on condi-
tioning of which one never knew or which one has forgotten.

As a matter of fact most psychoanalytic case histories seem to
show that, far from being unaccountable, unconscious (PSYCHO-
ANALYTIC MEANING) activity is pretty shrewd in getting what the
individual wants. If Freud interpreted correctly why the woman in
Case XVII, Chapter II (pp. 70-73), suspected her husband of infidel-
ity, her unconscious (PSYCHOANALYTIC MEANING) processes operated
most rationally to satisfy her desires. Unconsciousness (ANY MEAN-
ING) is not irrational in the sense of being irreconcilable to man's
reason. If, however, the usual meaning of the word irrational is
forgotten and another substituted, "based on socially unacceptable
premises," we approach Freud's meaning. When motivated by such
desires a person is likely to find himself in difficulty unless he is
particularly ingenious in making his actions appear to follow from
culturally accepted bases. Psychoanalysts insist that all actions origi-
nally derive from asocial motives and so must be rationalized.

It has already been said that a major reason why the kind of
communication labeled rationalization occurs so frequently in West-
ern culture is that pressure is repeatedly brought to bear on one to
explain one's acts. An American barber, unlike Mohammedan
barbers, cannot excuse his having cut off too much hair with a blithe
"Allah wills it." Like the defendant in court, a person is in a vise.
If he tells the truth as required by the rules, he will suffer from
other laws of the society. He therefore perjures himself, taking

THE IRRATIONALITY OF THE UNCOMMUNI GATED 289

advantage of the fact that there were no witnesses of his private
experience to corroborate or disprove his testimony. The jury must
be guided in deciding by the credibility of his story or by sympathy.
Indeed it is at law that the part of society in forcing rationalization
is most obvious. 24 An important difference between legal procedure
and real life is that the law does not require the defendant to give
evidence against himself, and so saves many from the nasty necessity
of perjury. Often, if the defendant stands on his rights and refuses
to testify, a jury feels that he has something to hide and is therefore
guilty. This inference circumvents the realism of the law. The jury
then is the culture clamping its vise on the defendant.

Why are cultural premises different from the "irrational," indi-
vidual premises, so giving rise to all this distortion of communica-
tion? Rousseau, long before Freud, answered 25 this question. He
said that the nature of sovereignty, determined by the social con-
tract, is that individuals must give up to the sovereign some of their
rights in order to live in peace and safety with each other. This
reasoning is a platitude often repeated by students of government.
The society, through its government, has the right to decide argu-
ments between its members, limit individual freedom drastically
for purposes of common welfare, and so forth. If the individual
lives in the society, he must accept these restrictions, whether he
likes them or not. What psychologists have frequently misnamed
"irrational" unconscious (INCOMMUNICABLE) principles are those
autonomous desires for independence and pleasure which care noth-
ing for the rest of the world. Such anarchic wishes of the individual
to have what he pleases, no matter what others may suffer as a re-
sult, are entirely comprehensible in terms of somagenic and psycho-
genie drives. They are "irrational" only in that they are antisocial.
They are often sufficiently anarchic that the requirements of the
culture limit drastically the communications describing the reasons
for acts motivated by them. Communication is a social act, and the
most powerful limitations of it, which must be taken into account

24 Cf. J. Frank, Law and the Modern Mind, New York: Tudor, 1936, 22-31.

25 J. J. Rousseau, The Social Contract, Book i, Chap. 6.

290 INCOMMUNICABLE UNCONSCIOUSNESS

when using it as an index of consciousness, are the social influences
which have just been considered.

THE WARRANT FOR SKEPTICISM ABOUT INTROSPECTIONS

The necessity for an eternally vigilant doubt about the truth of all
communications, especially subjective reports, is the main short-
coming of this social criterion of consciousness. The danger that the
subject may be suppressing something of which he is conscious is
present in every experiment and every clinical case where this index
is used. In Chapter V (pp. 118-119), for example, reference was made
to research of Dorcus on modification by hypnotic suggestion of some
vestibular and visual responses. He suggested to the subjects that
they were being rotated, and then watched them to see if they
developed nystagmus and falling reactions; he suggested that the
light was dimmed and then watched their pupillary reactions; he
suggested that they were seeing colors and then studied what after-
images they reported. Though the subjects reported that they ex-
perienced what was suggested, their nystagmus and falling reactions
were physiologically incorrect; their pupils did not dilate upon
suggestion that the light had been dimmed; and the subjects who
did not know the laws of after-images did not see the correct hues.
It seems likely from this result that only the verbal reports of the
subjects were affected by the hypnosis, that the physiological states
remained unaltered, and that the consciousness (AVAILABLE TO
AWARENESS) dependent on them was also unaffected. The com-
munications of the subjects probably did not correctly picture their
conscious (AVAILABLE TO AWARENESS) experience.

In Chapter III (pp. 81-83) it was observed that the weakness of the
introspective technique is that the private experiences of anyone are
unassailable without his co-operation. This limitation is also the
chief flaw in communicability as a criterion of consciousness. We
shall always be hard put to it to discover of what subjects in situa-
tions like Dorcus's experiments are conscious (AWARE OF DISCRIMINA-
TION).

COMMUNICABLE VS. INCOMMUNICABLE BEHAVIOR 291

THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN COMMUNICABLE AND
INCOMMUNICABLE BEHAVIOR

It is a salient, though often overlooked, fact of human psychology
that behavior whose determinants are communicable is usually dif-
ferent from that which cannot be made public. A jovial, swaggering
sailor is spending his day's shore-leave at Coney Island. He comes
to a concession where he finds he can win a monkey made of one
hundred per cent Angora wool. He must choose a number from one
to ten and bet a dime on it. He gets the monkey if the roulette
wheel turns up his number. The concessionaire has discovered
that, owing to mechanical imperfections, the wheel practically
never stops at the number six. Knowing that behavior can be deter-
mined by subliminal cues, 20 he has decided to apply this fact to his
advantage. He has had a phonograph record made which whispers
the word six just below the limen. The sailor chooses six, loses, and
goes away thinking luck was against him.

Two observations on this incident can be made with a good deal
of certainty: (a) If the number had been whispered supraliminally,
the sailor would not have chosen it. () If several of the sailor's
shipmates choose six, lose, compare notes, and become suspicious,
they may return to the booth. Should they discover the phonograph,
they will break up concession and concessionaire. When a person
can report the stimuli that elicit his actions, his behavior is differ-
ent from when he cannot report them.

If the phonograph whispers the word six below the limen of the
sailor's auditory sense receptors, it can never affect his behavior. If
it is loud enough to be above this limen but not loud enough for
him to report it, he is likely to bet on the number six. If it is so
loud that he can report it, his behavior will be different. Any stimu-
lus which sends an impulse along the auditory nerve is potentially
capable of affecting the behavior of the organism as a whole. There
is, however, another limen the limen of consciousness (COMMUNI-

26 Cf. J. G. Miller, Discrimination without .awareness, Amer. /. Psychol., 52, 1939, 562-78.

292 INCOMMUNICABLE UNCONSCIOUSNESS

CABLE) separating levels of organization of the organism. 27 If the
sound is loud enough to pass this latter limen, it passes to a level
of the nervous system at which it is reportable. Then it is a matter of
common observation that sailors, as well as all other persons, act
differently. The law holds them responsible for what they do under
such conditions, as was seen in Chapter XI (p. 265), and they
themselves feel that they are acting consciously (ACTING VOLUN-
TARILY). Whether or not it is an illusion, it is a datum of social
psychology that under these conditions people feel that their egos
are involved and behave differently on that account. Behavior
mediated by the central nervous system when neural vigilance is at
this level is different from other sorts because of this social reference.

CONCLUSIONS

The use of the ability or inability to communicate in differentiat-
ing consciousness (AVAILABLE TO AWARENESS) from unconsciousness
(UNAVAILABLE TO AWARENESS) is not an infallible criterion, and it is
surprising that such diverse schools have put their faith in it; never-
theless it has practical value as the index of consciousness (AVAILABLE
TO AWARENESS) most frequently employed. Its greatest limitation is
that if a person does not wish to reveal what, if anything, he is ex-
periencing, no one can force him to. Because in Western culture a
person frequently has to explain why he acted as he did, and be-
cause he is often motivated by antisocial drives or by conditioning
which he forgot or never knew about, rationalization often occurs,
lessening the degree of correspondence between consciousness
(AVAILABLE TO AWARENESS) and communication. There are also other
difficulties with the criterion of communicability, arising chiefly
from the imperfections of language. Despite all these faults, and
despite special conditions like aphasia in which it breaks down, com-
municability is a useful index for distinguishing consciousness
(AVAILABLE TO AWARENESS) from unconsciousness (UNAVAILABLE TO
AWARENESS), and it has been the means for proving that behavior in
these two states is different.

27 Cf. W. S. Hunter, The problem of consciousness, Psychol. Rev., 31, 1924, 14-6, on this
general question.

CHAPTER XIII
INVENTORY OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

Throughout the discussion in the preceding chapters it has been
emphasized repeatedly that one may be unconscious in one sense
while conscious in others. In taking inventory of the entire problem
of unconsciousness, the specters of these apparent conflicts must
insistently arise. Two possible solutions of these problems present
themselves. One possibility is that each meaning represents a differ-
ent criterion of a single phenomenon, none of which is entirely ade-
quate, because none is an invariable concomitant of that phenome-
non. One might, for instance, define a United States army officer
as a man who wears a khaki uniform with insignia, or a man who
graduated from West Point, or a man who knows secret American
military plans, but, though each of these definitions would be satis-
factory under many conditions, they all have exceptions, and so
they would sometimes conflict. The second possibility is that each
meaning of conscious refers to a different state or function of the
organism, and naturally all these states need not be present at once.
It is important to decide, if it can be done, which of these alternative
explanations accounts for the numerous meanings of conscious and
unconscious.

THE VIEW THAT CONSCIOUSNESS IS A SINGLE PHENOMENON

The independent variation of the several criteria of consciousness
illustrated in previous chapters is by no means a disproof that they
all refer to a single process or state. Biologists have found them-
selves in a similar situation in attempting to define protoplasm
living matter. The distinctive characteristics of protoplasm are
metabolism, reproduction, excretion, and irritability. It is ques-
tionable, however, whether the tobacco mosaic virus can fulfill all
these requirements, though it certainly can fulfill some. The exist-
ence of such borderline cases does not mean that the distinction

293

294 INVENTORY OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

between living and dead matter is not significant and will not assist
in predicting the activity of any specific portion of matter under
consideration. It means simply that no single criterion of differentia-
tion is always adequate. Likewise most, if not all, of the significances
of consciousness may refer to aspects of an identical phenomenon,
but all those aspects are not necessarily present at the same time.

Cough is a sign of tuberculosis, but a patient may be tubercular
and still have no cough. The presence of tubercle bacilli giving rise
to the pathognomonic tubercles in a person is tuberculosis. Viewing
these is the ultimate and incontrovertible evidence of the disease,
but often the tissue suspected of containing the tubercles cannot be
made available for study without endangering the patient. The
absolute proof is hidden in the "privacy" of the patient's body, and
only indirect clues of its existence are available cough, bacilli in
the sputum, pathological X-rays of the lung, abnormal signs on
percussion and auscultation of the chest, and so forth. Not all are
present in every case; sometimes none may be observed, but the
tubercles are nevertheless present.

To most nonbehaviorists AWARE OF DISCRIMINATION or AVAILABLE
TO AWARENESS is the fundamental meaning of conscious. Introspec-
tion gives the incontrovertible evidence of consciousness (AVAILABLE
TO AWARENESS) or unconsciousness (UNAVAILABLE TO AWARENESS),
but this evidence is concealed from the world in the "privacy" of the
individual. There are outward criteria of conscious states, but they
all are not always present. Sometimes none is observable.

From various introspective reports and one's own experience one
may conclude that, subjectively, consciousness (AWARE OF DISCRIMI-
NATION) can be likened to a meter which registers what is going on
in certain parts of the organism. It is as if the processes occupying
consciousness at any specific time, those processes, say, resulting
from the red visual stimuli which lead to pressing the foot on the
automobile's brake, were traveling through a main circuit. The
meter is in a second-order circuit, tapping the main circuit and
susceptible to changes in it. Other neural circuits are operating at
the same time, but they are insulated from the meter circuit or are

THE STRATIFICATION OF BEHAVIORAL ORGANIZATION 295

not strong enough to affect it, and so they are not registered by it.

There are many who have pictured consciousness as a mysterious
and useless accompaniment of certain activities, which does not go
along with others. The analogy of the meter suggests this inter-
pretation, but suppose that such a meter operates as a governor con-
trolling the main circuit. That would be an entirely different situa-
tion. It was seen in Chapter XII (pp. 291-292) how something of this
sort occurs. Unconscious (UNAVAILABLE TO AWARENESS and INCOM-
MUNICABLE) behavior is different from conscious. If the meter is
able to record what is going on in the main circuit, the function of
the main circuit is altered. This result occurs, for one reason, be-
cause the operation of consciousness, on account of the imposition
by, the social group of its code upon its members, is considered by
each member to be integrally bound up with his own pride and
reputation, his ego. Our social group holds us responsible for those
of our actions of which we arc conscious; for, whether or not one
believes that there is voluntary action, it is a fact that our conscious
actions are thought generally to be under our voluntary control.
This belief, even if false, can modify our actions. Hartmann ex-
pressed this generally accepted principle as follows: 1 "I may be
proud of the work of consciousness, as my own deed, the fruit of
my own hard labour; the fruit of the Unconscious is as it were a gift
of the gods, and man only its favoured messenger."

Our social conditioning is thus one factor making conscious be-
havior unlike unconscious, for, as soon as behavior becomes con-
scious, it is modified in order to avoid disapproval by society.

THE STRATIFICATION OF BEHAVIORAL ORGANIZATION

Like other meters, consciousness (AVAILABLE TO AWARENESS) is
limited in what it can report. Stimulation too weak to pass the
threshold of the conscious system will not affect it, just as small
potentials will not swing the needle of a voltmeter. There may,
moreover, be other independent, isolated centers or levels of neural

1 E. v. Hartmann, Philosophy of the Unconscious, New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1931
(Vol. II, Chap. 11), 40.

296 INVENTORY OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

organization in the organism which will not be registered, just as
an ammeter records the flow in the circuit to which it is attached,
but in no other.

Why some processes are incapable of passing the threshold of
consciousness or can proceed independently of it is a further prob-
lem. A sensory stimulus may reach low levels of the nervous system
and so affect behavior, but nevertheless be insufficiently intense to
attain the conscious neural organization. Also, processes may be
suppressed to subliminal strength or made part of independent
neural systems after they have been conscious.

The chief fact to be learned from introspective distinctions be-
tween conscious (AVAILABLE TO AWARENESS) and unconscious (UN-
AVAILABLE TO AWARENESS) acts is that there is a hierarchy of levels of
behavioral organization dependent upon a similar neural functional
stratification. The organism may operate normally at the discrimina-
tory level and still be unable to function at the verbal level. It may
be attentive and yet be unable to remember.

There are functional strata of the nervous system. Such stratifica-
tion is illustrated by the orderly disappearance of first one and then
another function, reflex, or sensation as the concentration of a gen-
eral anesthetic agent in the blood increases. First the ability to walk
will disappear, then the ability to stand, then the ability to maintain
the head in the upright position, and so on.

These strata operate as units, as a classical experiment with the
pithed frog illustrates. An electrical stimulus applied to the muscles
of one leg has to be of a certain strength before it has any effect at
all. Above that magnitude, the impulse will make the leg move. If
the strength is increased gradually, finally an intensity will be
reached at which the opposite leg moves. With further increase
suddenly the forelegs also will be activated, and finally the whole
body. The intensity of stimulation may increase imperceptibly, but
the reaction of the organism to it develops stepwise. Each level of
the nervous system has its own threshold. In like manner, as was
demonstrated in Chapter VI (pp. 151-158), there is a threshold of con-
sciousness, and only when stimulation is strong enough to cross it

THE UTILITY PRINCIPLE AND THE PLEASURE PRINCIPLE 297

can behavior characteristic of consciousness (AVAILABLE TO AWARE-
NESS and COMMUNICABLE) be elicited.

From time to time throughout the preceding chapters reference
has been made to Head's descriptive conception of neural vigilance,
a state of "high-grade physiological activity" which is accompanied
by consciousness. All the evidence reviewed in Chapter IV (pp. 93-
115) seemed, when analyzed, to show that consciousness is not medi-
ated by any specific part of the nervous system. It is best to picture
the greatest neural vigilance, which gives rise to consciousness
(AVAILABLE TO AWARENESS), as migrating from place to place, being
present in whatever region of the nervous system is at that time the
location of the highest integration of the total behavior. (This inte-
gration must be pictured vaguely, because the facts which would be
necessary to describe it more explicitly are not available.)

THE UTILITY PRINCIPLE AND THE PLEASURE PRINCIPLE

Often, as in fantasies or while dreaming, the highest degree of
vigilance is not dealing with the motor activities of the body in re-
sponse to stimulation from the environment. These actions are auto-
matic, unattended, and all conscious (AVAILABLE TO AWARENESS)
thoughts are far from them. Two principles have previously been
considered upon which determination seems to be made of what
processes are in the focus of consciousness, with what functions the
greatest neural vigilance is related. These are the economic utility
principle and the pleasure principle.

The first of these principles is that in general nothing more is in
the center of consciousness than is necessary for the business at hand.
It has been seen (pp. 165-172) that consciousness (ATTENDED) directed
toward many sorts of activities improves their accomplishment, and
that two cannot usually be done well together. Introspective reports
indicate that consciousness wanders from the task in hand as soon
as it has been repeated enough to involve no novelty. As long as the
environment is understood and under control, as well as changeless,
consciousness tends to shun monotony and turn from these things
to others, often to pleasurable fantasies. Whenever a sudden change

298 INVENTORY OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

in surroundings occurs, however, any intense, sudden stimulus or
motion or contrast with the past, then the various kinds of startle
or surprise behavior appear. There is a rapid flash-back to conscious-
ness of the change, which may perhaps affect the individual's wel-
fare. Everything extraneous is submerged in unconsciousness (UN-
AVAILABLE TO AWARENESS).

Forgetting and remembering, as well as attention, are regulated ac-
cording to this utility principle, although the pleasure principle is also
of importance. One would not be able to concentrate upon one par-
ticular present activity if he were at the same time conscious of every-
thing in his memory. At any one time a large part of the available
traces, therefore, is stored away out of direct contact with the high-
est neural organization. Yet these traces are not merely filed away,
but, as has been often demonstrated (cf. Chapter IX, pp. 216-239),
they are continually interacting, combining, being modified.

No one's memory of the past is complete, and a chief rule for
what is retained and what forgotten is the utility principle. Other
things being equal, those items are remembered best which are
likely to be important in the future, and those items are forgotten
in which there is no interest, for which it appears there will be no
later demand. This utilitarian thrift of memory is not unlike the
wisdom of the collector who keeps whatever postage stamps are
likely to be valuable or interesting to him in the future and gets rid
of the others.

The pleasure principle, which also is important in determining
what shall be conscious (AVAILABLE TO AWARENESS) and what not,
has been defended particularly by Freud. That what is painful is
repressed into unconsciousness (UNREMEMBERED) is an integral part
of his conceptual scheme, for repression is the mechanism by which
he tries to explain most types of unconscious (PSYCHOANALYTIC
MEANING) behavior. In the Freudian distinction between uncon-
scious and preconscious may be seen the differences between the
ways the pleasure principle and the utility principle operate. Un-
consciousness (PSYCHOANALYTIC MEANING) is normally incommuni-
cable, according to Freudian tenets, because recognizing what its

THE UTILITY PRINCIPLE AND THE PLEASURE PRINCIPLE 299

contents are would cause the individual to suffer super-ego anxiety.
Repression occurs because these contents are related to the instinc-
tual, inherited drives the free expression of which in Western society
would lead to punishment painful to the individual. The contents
of preconsciousness, on the other hand, can be easily recalled for
they are not socially taboo, and hence are not repressed according to
the pleasure principle, but are merely not attended to or are ignored
because they are at the moment unimportant. This is a case of the
operation of the utility principle.

Introspective report gives no justification for the distinction be-
tween preconsciousness and unconsciousness (PSYCHOANALYTIC
MEANING), for both of them are beyond consciousness (AVAILABLE
TO AWARENESS). The depth psychologists have, however, adduced
convincing behavioral proof that the two states are different. They
have shown that repressed contents continually break forth into a
distorted expression in symbolic acts, slips of the tongue and pen,
and so forth. Since there are no barriers restraining the contents of
preconsciousness from expression in consciousness (AVAILABLE TO
AWARENESS), they do not appear in such distorted expression. In
many concrete situations it is difficult or impossible to determine
whether it is according to the utility principle or according to the
pleasure principle that the highest integration of neural organiza-
tion is being regulated in order to bring into focus those aspects of
the environment or those functions which are conscious (AVAILABLE
TO AWARENESS) at the moment. Frequently examples of inattentive-
ness or forgetting, which could reasonably be explained by the
utility principle, are contorted by complicated and imaginative
argument, especially by depth psychologists, in order to show that
the Oedipus situation or some other instance of the pleasure prin-
ciple was really in operation. On the other hand, there are psychol-
ogists, especially academics, who prefer to strain every possible
explanation by the utility principle before falling back upon the
pleasure principle.

Of the two explanations as to why some behavior is unconscious
(UNAVAILABLE TO AWARENESS), the pleasure principle can be regarded

300 INVENTORY OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

as a special case of the utility principle. In general, pleasurable
activities are useful to the organism and painful activities are harm-
ful. Sweet things in nature are likely to be good food, and eating
them is pleasant; bitter things in nature are often poisonous, and
they are unpleasant, often eliciting vomiting that rids the body of
them. There are good grounds for speculating as to whether the
instincts of psychoanalytic theory, especially sex and aggression,
whose satisfaction is pleasurable, are not likewise of great utility to
the individual. Certainly the wish to evade the pain of punishment
by other members of one's society has utility.

The first of the two suggested explanations for the many mean-
ings of conscious and unconscious that they are all criteria of a
single phenomenon called "consciousness" may be summarized as
follows: From the point of view of subjective experience, there is
only one sort of consciousness (AVAILABLE TO AWARENESS). This is
characteristic of whatever process or processes are at the moment
under the control of the level of the nervous system with the high-
est integration of neural vigilance. The principles of utility and
pleasure determine what functions or parts of the environment will
be conscious (AVAILABLE TO AWARENESS) at any time. All these con-
clusions are based upon facts derived primarily from introspective
report, though to a degree corroborated objectively.

THE VIEW THAT EACH SENSE OF CONSCIOUS REFERS
TO A FUNCTION

The alternative explanation of the many meanings of the words
conscious and unconscious is that each sense refers to a different
state or function of the organism, all of which are not necessarily
present at once. For such a position introspective evidence is much
less vital. It appears to an observer watching the behavior of another
person that he acts differently when he is conscious (ATTENDING)
from the way he acts when he is conscious (REMEMBERING or UN-
ABLE TO COMMUNICATE, etc.). In fact it is difficult to tell by such
observation what these various actions have in common that have
caused them to be called conscious. They appear to be many sorts

SEPARATE FUNCTION FOR EACH SENSE OF CONSCIOUS 301

of discrimination, and it is not obvious to unaided extraspection
that consciousness (AVAILABLE TO AWARENESS) exists at all, much less
that it accompanies some discriminations and not others. From out-
side the organism, then, the various types of conscious behavior
seem independent, and there appears to be little reason for classify-
ing them together.

In the cases of Chapter II the dissimilarities among the various
sorts of conscious behavior are apparent. Surely the unconsciousness
(PSYCHOANALYTIC MEANING) of the woman in Case XVII (pp. 70-
73), who suspected her husband of infidelity but did not realize the
character of her own desires, was greatly different from the uncon-
sciousness (UNSENSED) of the man in Case VI (p. 52), who did not
feel the fifth finger in the phantom hand that appeared after his
hand was amputated. Certainly the unconsciousness (SUBLIMINAL
STIMULI AFFECTING ORGANISM) of minute changes in the position of
birds' wings, reported by Hankin in Case VII (p. 53), is entirely
unlike the unconsciousness (UNATTENDED) of Ellen J. (Case VIH,
p. 54) that she had drunk* the tomato juice and taken the aspirin
tablets. It is indeed a wide range of acts that have been classified as
unconscious behavior.

In certain studies several of these dissimilar phenomena are inter-
changeably called unconscious, and often the convincing appearance
of these researches depends upon this substitution of meanings in
midstream. Messerschmidt's experimentation, considered in Chap-
ter IX (pp. 228-229), for instance, suffered from such verbal capers,
though it nevertheless was a suggestive study. Under hypnosis her
subjects were instructed that, when they returned to the normal
waking state, they were to do serial addition as rapidly as they
could, beginning with a number which would be given them. Each
was to write the totals of these additions with one of his hands,
which was to be placed under a screen. Each was told that his
"subconscious mind" was to direct his mathematical activity. Post-
hypnotic amnesia for the occurrences in the trance was suggested,
and the subject was awakened. Thereupon, without further direc-
tions, he went and put his hand under the screen. Then he was

302 INVENTORY OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

given a book and told to read it aloud as rapidly as possible. At the
same time he was also given additions to do.

Messerschmidt found that the performance of the two tasks
simultaneously, even though one was "conscious" and the other
"unconscious," slowed down each activity and made it less accurate.
She apparently subscribed to a systematic theory defining uncon-
scious acts, but the reasons for her calling serial addition "uncon-
scious" varied from time to time. Her first reason was that the addi-
tion was performed as a result of a suggestion to "the subconscious
mind" while the subject was unconscious (HYPNOTIZED, UNRESPON-
SIVE TO STIMULATION). Second, the subjects were considered uncon-
scious (UNREMEMBERING) because they had posthypnotic amnesia
for the directions to perform the addition. Third, the mathematics
was unconscious (UNATTENDED) because the subjects consciously paid
attention to something else reading aloud. Finally, the calculation
was unconscious (INCOMMUNICABLE) because the subjects could not
report that they had been doing addition, and they frequently were
disturbed by the fact that their reading was halting. Messerschmidt
skipped lightly from one of these criteria of unconsciousness to
another, presumably believing that they are equivalent, and ap-
parently not recognizing how often they can be at variance. Such
easy assumptions will hamper any investigation unless it is first
proved that under the circumstances studied the various sorts of
unconsciousness are always covariable.

A DAY WITH DR. CRAIG

The great differences between the various meanings of uncon-
scious and the frequency with which they are in conflict may be
portrayed by spending a mythical day with a legendary interne in
a general hospital, young Dr. Craig.

On arising early in the morning, Dr. Craig snatched a little break-
fast and went to visit each of the patients in the ward which was
his personal responsibility. One of the first patients that he saw said
that overnight he had developed a "sort of pain" in his abdomen.
He was unable to explain exactly what sort of pain it was, even

A DAY WITH DR. CRAIG 303

when Dr. Craig suggested various descriptions which he might use.
Dr. Craig promised to see him again later. [This man was conscious
(SENSING and ATTENDING) of his pain at the same time that he was
unconscious (UNABLE TO COMMUNICATE) of its nature.] Several beds
down the ward a man of thirty-five was speaking to his wife and
ten-year-old son before going to the operating room for an opera-
tion on a brain tumor. Both he and his wife understood the extreme
seriousness of the situation, but as Dr. Craig passed by them to the
next bed he noted that they gave no hint of their knowledge to
their son, but talked in banalities until time for them to part. [These
parents were conscious (INSIGHTFUL) of the father's condition, but,
so far as their son was concerned, they were unconscious (UNABLE
TO COMMUNICATE) of it.] Dr. Craig sat down for a moment beside
the bed of an aged invalid who had been on his back for more than
a year, and who was almost blind in both eyes, because of develop-
ing cataracts, as well as being nearly deaf. He did not recognize
people, but he enjoyed telling anyone who would sit with him
about his youth on the farm. [He was conscious (REMEMBERING) but
at the same time unconscious (UNDISCRIMINATING and nearly UN-
SENSING).]

Because one of his patients, the thirty-five-year-old father, was to
be operated on that morning, Dr. Craig next went to the room where
the operation was to take place. A nurse was counting out three
dozen hemostats, preparing the instruments for autoclaving, and
when Dr. Craig spoke to her she did not reply for half a minute.
Then she said, "Did you speak to me?" [She was conscious (AWAKE,

RESPONSIVE TO STIMULATION, as Well as ACTING VOLUNTARILY) but

unconscious (UNATTENDING) of his remark.] Passing a little later
into an adjoining operating room, Dr. Craig found another brain
operation in progress. The patient's cortex had been exposed under
local anesthesia, and the patient was able to talk to his nurse and
doctors. The surgeon electrically stimulated various parts of the
cortex much as Penfield did (cf. pp. 66-67), and different groups of
the patient's muscles moved. The patient reported that he felt the
stimulation and the movements. [He was conscious (NOT ANESTHE-

304 INVENTORY OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

TIZED, RESPONSIVE TO STIMULATION, 3S Well 3S ABLE TO COMMUNICATE

and AWARE OF DISCRIMINATION) at the same time that he was uncon-
scious (ACTING INVOLUNTARILY).] In a third operating room a patient
under deep ether anesthesia was being prepared for operation. An
orderly touched the patient's leg, and it moved markedly in response.
[The patient therefore was conscious (DISCRIMINATING) although he
was also unconscious (ANESTHETIZED, UNRESPONSIVE TO STIMULATION,
and probably UNSENSING, STIMULI NOT REACHING THE CORTEX OR THE
"SEAT OF AWARENESS" OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM).]

As Dr. Craig left the operating floor he went out through the
recovery room. Here a nurse told him that a patient who had come
from an operation while apparently still under anesthesia, or cer-
tainly asleep, had remembered being wheeled from the operating
room. [The patient had been conscious (REMEMBERING) while he
was still unconscious (ANESTHETIZED or ASLEEP, UNRESPONSIVE TO
STIMULATION).]

There were a few minutes left before time for grand rounds to
begin, and Dr. Craig went to the laboratory to make a count of a
patient's red blood cells. Another doctor was in the room, and he
began to talk with him about a patient in whom he was much
interested, while counting the cells under his microscope. Engrossed
in his conversation, he forgot all about the blood counting until he
looked down at the paper beside the microscope and found the
totals for four chambers written there in his own handwriting.
[While doing this counting he had been conscious (AWAKE, RESPON-
SIVE TO STIMULATION, and DISCRIMINATING) but also unconscious
(UNATTENDING and UNAWARE OF DISCRIMINATION).]

About this time grand rounds began, and Dr. Craig joined the
group of other doctors and nurses to go around the wards with the
physician-in-chief, seeing interesting patients. The physician-in-chief
in a half hour had finished discussing the second case of the morn-
ing, and he moved on to the next patient, talking as he walked. He
had left his stethoscope on the bed of the patient he had just seen,
and several of the onlookers obviously noticed this occurrence, but
they did not think it wise to mention it because of the impropriety

A DAY WITH DR. CRAIG 305

of interrupting the speaker in the formal discussion. [The onlookers
were conscious (AWAKE, RESPONSIVE TO STIMULATION, and SENSING) of
the physician-in-chief s memory lapse but also they were uncon-
scious (UNABLE TO COMMUNICATE) of it.]

Dr. Craig was interested in an episode that occurred somewhat
later. One of the senior physicians, who had not been with the group
oh rounds, came into the ward, and the physician-in-chief for his
benefit gave a short resume of the history of the patient under con-
sideration. He then asked the newly arrived doctor what diagnosis
he would make. He replied that he thought the patient had an
aleukemic leukemia, but when asked for his reasons he had to con-
sider some time before he could begin to give them; and after he
had done so, he added that an important factor in his decision was
his "general impression" of the patient. The patient's subsequent
course confirmed his diagnosis. [In making his diagnosis the physi-
cian had been conscious (DISCRIMINATING, ABLE TO COMMUNICATE,
and AWARE OF DISCRIMINATION) but he had been unconscious (IN-
SIGHTLESS) of his discrimination and reasoning (cf. p. 185).] The
physician-in-chief later in the morning spent more than half an
hour discussing the case of a patient with a high fever. After the
group finally passed on, the patient summoned Dr. Craig, who
was among the last to leave, and asked him to give her a drink of
water. She said that she had been very thirsty all during the con-
sideration of her illness, but had not dared to ask for a drink. [She
was conscious (RECOGNIZING) of her need for water but unconscious
(UNABLE TO COMMUNICATE) of it at the time.]

It was now time for lunch, and Dr. Craig went to the internes'
dining hall. While waiting for the soup course to be served, he
began day-dreaming about his vacation in his family's summer
home. When the soup arrived, he commenced eating automatically,
and he was so wrapped in his thoughts that a friend sitting next to
him had to address him twice before he answered. [He was con-
scious (REMEMBERING and SENSING) but unconscious (DAY-DREAMING,
UNRESPONSIVE TO STIMULATION, and UNATTENDING).] This friend told
him of a difficult problem that had arisen in his ward that morning.

306 INVENTORY OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

He had been ordered by the physician-in-chief to arrange to send a
patient to a tuberculosis sanitarium, but he was not to tell him that
he had tuberculosis until the family had been informed. The patient
heard from a nurse that he was to be sent to another hospital, and
demanded most insistently from the interne what was wrong with
him that he had to be sent away. Because of his orders, the interne
could not tell him of the application he had made to the sanitarium.
[The interne was conscious (ACTING VOLUNTARILY) in making the
application for transfer, but also he was unconscious (UNABLE TO
COMMUNICATE) of it.]

Since it was Saturday, Dr. Craig had no responsibilities in his
ward that afternoon, but had to remain on call somewhere in the
hospital. He decided, therefore, to visit various other parts of the
hospital to see the patients. As he was hurrying through the halls
toward the neurological ward, he passed quite a number of men
and women coming into the hospital, for it was the beginning of
visiting hours. Suddenly he heard a woman call out, "Doctor," and
turned to sec her walking toward him. The woman gave him a slip
of paper and said, "I think this is yours." He recognized it as the
piece of paper with the totals for the red cell count which he had
made earlier in the day. He asked her where she had got it, and
she said, "I just passed you and saw it fall out of your pocket." He
thanked her and passed on, thinking to himself that he had not
remembered her face, although he had looked at everyone who
passed him. [He had been conscious (SENSING) but unconscious
(UNREMEMBERING) . ]

The neurological ward had several patients who interested Dr.
Craig that afternoon. One was a prize fighter who had come into
the hospital after being knocked out in a fight. He recovered, acted
sensibly, and appeared to be oriented adequately to the environ-
ment. He could not, however, remember events of the period since
his knock-out, or even what happened five minutes before (cf. pp.
127-128) . [He was conscious (DISCRIMINATING), but from another point
of view he was unconscious (UNREMEMBERING).] There was an
aphasic on the ward who appeared to understand simple directions,

A DAY WITH DR. CRAIG 307

but was unable to speak in an intelligible manner (cf. pp. 68-69).
[He was therefore conscious (DISCRIMINATING, SENSING, ATTENDING,
REMEMBERING, and ACTING VOLUNTARILY) but also unconscious
(UNABLE TO COMMUNICATE).] Another neurological patient was a
boy who was subject to epileptic seizures in which he showed un-
controllable muscular movements and spasm, but who afterward
said he knew everything that was going on during the attack. [In
such a seizure he was conscious (SENSING) as well as unconscious
(ACTING INVOLUNTARILY).] The next patient Dr. Craig saw on the
neurological service was a spastic paralytic who had great difficulty
in walking or in moving his hands because he was unable to co-
ordinate these movements, and often his arms or legs would move
in unexpected directions. He understood that these acts resulted
from a neural lesion, and was doing the best he could to control
them. [This patient was thus at the same time conscious (AWAKE,

RESPONSIVE TO STIMULATION, as Well as ATTENDING and INSIGHTFUL)

and unconscious (ACTING INVOLUNTARILY).]

As he left the neurological ward for the psychiatric, Dr. Craig
noticed an exceedingly near-sighted woman having her vision tested
with a letter-chart. She could not see even the largest letter, and
the surprised examiner asked if she had not learned her alphabet.
She replied with some vehemence that she had, but simply could
not see the letters. [She was conscious (ATTENDING and ABLE TO COM-
MUNICATE) but unconscious (UNDISCRIMINATING and UNSENSING,
SUBLIMINAL STIMULI AFFECTING ORGANISM).] In the psychiatric ward
Dr. Craig saw, but was unable to set up a conversation with, a
catatonic schizophrenic who sat all day without moving and had
to be fed forcibly. Despite the apathy of this man at the time, Dr.
Craig knew that weeks or months later, when he came out of the
state, he would probably say that he had known everything that
was going on and would be able to remember much of it. [He was,
therefore, conscious (REMEMBERING) although he was unconscious
(UNRESPONSIVE TO STIMULATION).]

From the neurological ward Dr. Craig went to the out-patient
department, which was having a busy afternoon. The police brought

308 INVENTORY OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

in a man who had just lost his job and was so much affected by that
unexpected turn of affairs that he dazedly crossed the street at a
busy intersection without taking due care and was brushed by an
automobile. [While crossing the street he had been conscious
(AWAKE, RESPONSIVE TO STIMULATION) but unconscious (UNDISCRIMI-
NATING).] An unmarried woman in her late fifties came up to Dr.
Craig in the hall and said that since she had been made to wait over
an hour she was going to force him to listen to her troubles. She
said she had a left earache that woke her up at night, low back
pain, twinges in her right leg, and "indigestion something awful."
She wanted some medicine to cure all her illnesses. Dr. Craig
thought to himself that probably nothing short of marriage would
solve her problems, for it was obvious to him that she had no under-
standing of what her real needs and desires were. Since he could
scarcely prescribe the only adequate therapy, he referred her to the
gastrointestinal clinic. [This woman was conscious (AWAKE, RE-
SPONSIVE TO STIMULATION, and most certainly ABLE TO COMMUNICATE)
but for all that she was unconscious (UNRECOGNIZING) of her needs.]
Another out-patient came to the hospital with a third-degree burn
on one finger which resulted from her touching the side of a hot
oven. She said, in describing the accident, that her hand had jerked
the whole way out of the oven before she felt any pain. [For an
instant she was conscious (DISCRIMINATING) but also unconscious
(ACTING INVOLUNTARILY and UNAWARE OF DISCRIMINATION).] In the
room where this woman's finger was being dressed, Dr. Craig over-
heard an interne explaining to a not-too-intelligent patient how to
prepare a poultice. She listened carefully, but was unable to repeat
the directions. [While the interne had been talking to her she had
been conscious (ATTENDING) but unconscious (UNREMEMBERING).]
About this time a taxicab brought to the hospital a man who was
breathing heavily, and who said that he felt so dizzy he could not
tell one thing from another, and therefore had not dared to drive
himself to the hospital. [He was conscious (SENSING, ACTING VOLUN-
TARILY, and ABLE TO COMMUNICATE) but unconscious (UNDISCRIMI-
NATING).]

A DAY WITH DR. CRAIG 309

A patient appeared with a fractured tibia to be set. He said that
the back steps of his house had been taken away to be rebuilt, and
he had temporarily forgotten about this fact. He stepped out of
the door and fell to the ground, breaking his leg. [When he stepped
out he was conscious (ACTING VOLUNTARILY) although he was also
unconscious (UNREMEMBERING).] As Dr. Craig was watching the
preparations for setting the leg, an interne came to him and asked
if he would be willing to take care of two patients whom he did
not have time to see. Dr. Craig agreed, and found the first one to
be a 26o-pound woman on an obesity diet. She assured him that she
paid no attention to butter on the table and tried not to think of
fatty foods, but that she always knew that nothing would make her
happier than pork chops and French-fried potatoes. [She was con-
scious (RECOGNIZING and ABLE TO COMMUNICATE) of her desires but
at the same time unconscious (IGNORING) of them.] Dr. Craig com-
mended her fortitude and gave her an appointment to return in a
month. The second patient was a boy of thirteen who said he had
a "stomach ache." He had eaten some chocolate cookies, and Dr.
Craig could find no abnormality on physical examination. He did
not feel that the boy acted as if he were well, however, although he
did not know why he thought so. He admitted the boy to the
hospital and sent him to the children's ward, although he had
often refused to admit other children with exactly the same story.
[In this decision he was conscious (ACTING VOLUNTARILY) but also
unconscious (INSIGHTLESS and UNABLE TO COMMUNICATE).]

Dr. Craig wished to go to the children's ward to see about the
boy he had just admitted, so he left the out-patient department. On
his way out he met a social worker who was going the same way,
and so walked along with her. She said that she had just been talk-
ing to a patient with a long police record, but that she made no
mention of the record to the patient, and moreover did the best she
could to put it out of her mind. As a result she felt that she had
developed a much better mutual understanding between herself and
the patient than she would have otherwise. [She had been conscious
(AWARE OF DISCRIMINATION) of the police record but unconscious

310 INVENTORY OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

(UNATTENDING) of it.] The two of them then passed a blind orderly
walking down the hall. Dr. Craig remarked that he was able to
find his way about the hospital exceptionally well considering that
he could not see. The social worker was astonished to learn that he
was blind, for she had never realized it. [The orderly was con-
scious (AWAKE, RESPONSIVE TO STIMULATION, and REMEMBERING) but
unconscious (UNSENSING, SENSORY TRACT INCAPABLE OF CONVEYING
STIMULI).] They then came to the children's ward, and Dr. Craig
noticed the clock over the door as he entered. Suddenly it shot
through his mind that he had made an appointment with another
interne for an hour before, and had completely forgotten it. Then,
however, it was too late to do anything about it except call and
make his apologies. [All afternoon he had been conscious (AWAKE,
RESPONSIVE TO STIMULATION) and at the same time unconscious
(UNREMEMBERINC) of the appointment.]

In the children's ward his thirteen-year-old boy was in bed hap-
pily working on a jig-saw puzzle. Dr. Craig explained to his mother,
who was sitting beside the bed, that there was probably nothing
at all seriously wrong with the boy, but that he ought to be observed
overnight. The boy was too much interested in his puzzle by this
time to pay any attention to what the doctor was saying. [He was
conscious (AWAKE, RESPONSIVE TO STIMULATION, and ACTING VOLUN-
TARILY) but unconscious (UNATTENDING) of the conversation.] In
another part of the ward Dr. Craig met the mother of a child who
had just had infantile paralysis, but was to go home that afternoon.
A nurse was telling her that she would have to bring her child
back to the orthopedic clinic regularly so that she could be taught
how to walk properly with the muscles that were still functioning.
The mother did not believe that returning was necessary, for she
thought she could teach her child to walk. To prove to the mother
that she could not, Dr. Craig asked her to point to the muscle she
used to move her knee, but she was unable to do it. [She had,
therefore, for many years been conscious (AWAKE, RESPONSIVE TO
STIMULATION, and ACTING VOLUNTARILY) although she had always

A DAY WITH DR. CRAIG 311

been unconscious (INSIGHTLESS) of how she performed the everyday
act of walking.]

Dr. Craig then went to the maternity ward. In the incubator room
he saw a premature baby nursing from a bottle, and noticed that
he began to make sucking movements as soon as the nurse touched
his cheek with the nipple. [The baby was conscious (AWAKE, RE-
SPONSIVE TO STIMULATION, 3S Well as DISCRIMINATING and SENSING) but

unconscious (ACTING INSTINCTIVELY).] In the ward Dr. Craig spoke
to a young mother whom he had seen in the labor room the day
before, apparently suffering from pain and complaining of it. She
had been given scopolamine. She said now that she had had no pain
and remembered nothing of the affair (cf. p. 210). [She had been
conscious (DISCRIMINATING) but also unconscious (perhaps UNAWARE
OF DISCRIMINATION but more likely UNREMEMBERING).] By now it
was time for dinner, and Dr. Craig went to the dining room.

In the evening it was his duty to visit each patient in his own
ward. One of the first patients he saw admitted to Dr. Craig that,
in the afternoon when she saw the nurse coming to give her medi-
cine, she pretended to be asleep, because she did not like the taste
of the medicine, and the doctor had directed the nurse not to wake
her to give it to her. [When the nurse came with the medicine,
according to her story, this patient was conscious (AWAKE and
SENSING) but also unconscious (UNRESPONSIVE TO STIMULATION).]
Dr. Craig arranged to have the medicine given intravenously. A
woman in a near-by bed was sitting up and reading a novel. Dr.
Craig noticed while speaking to her that she had put cotton in her
ears in order not to hear the sounds of the ward. [She was conscious
(ATTENDNG and ACTING VOLUNTARILY) but unconscious (UNSENSING,

SUBLIMINAL STIMULI AFFECTING ORGANISM).]

As soon as he had seen all the patients, the nurses turned out the
lights in the ward. Dr. Craig wrote some orders for the care of
certain patients, and while doing it made a slip of the pen. One of
the patients that morning, angry at not being allowed to go home,
had told him that he was a "poor doctor." As he was writing on
her record, "This woman must get a good night's rest, even if she

312 INVENTORY OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

has to be given a private room," he made a mistake and wrote,
"This woman must get a poor night's rest." [As he wrote this he
was conscious (AWAKE, RESPONSIVE TO STIMULATION, and ACTING
VOLUNTARILY) but also unconscious (PSYCHOANALYTIC MEANING).]
As he was writing out orders, a student nurse came to him and
said that she had forgotten to take the temperatures of the patients
until forty-five minutes too late. She asked him not to tell anyone,
and he agreed. Later it happened that the head nurse asked him if
he knew when the temperatures had been taken, and he replied that
he did not pay attention to such trivial things. [In giving this answer
he was conscious (REMEMBERING) as well as unconscious (UNABLE
TO COMMUNICATE) of what the head nurse wanted to know.] The
head nurse said that half a dozen times while she was sitting at her
desk recording temperatures and pulse rates, the call bell of one
patient had rung. She thought that, since the patient was not very
ill, it would be best to refuse to answer it any more. Dr. Craig
agreed, and for the rest of the night the bell rang unheeded. [The
nurse was conscious (AWAKE, RESPONSIVE TO STIMULATION, as well as

SENSING, ACTING VOLUNTARILY, and AWARE OF DISCRIMINATION) but

unconscious (IGNORING) . ]

Dr. Craig looked around the ward once more before going to bed,
and he found that one of the patients was talking distinctly in his
sleep. Only with difficulty was he awakened, so that he would stop
and not disturb others. [This patient was conscious (ABLE TO COM-
MUNICATE) but unconscious (ASLEEP, UNRESPONSIVE TO STIMULATION).]
After this Dr. Craig went to his room and to bed. As always, the
amplifier of the call system was turned on. He would sleep soundly,
however, awakening only if his name were called. [Thus he spent
the night, conscious (DISCRIMINATING) but unconscious (ASLEEP,

UNRESPONSIVE TO STIMULATION).]

CONCLUSION

The fable of Dr. Craig illustrates a few of the many conflicts that
exist between the meanings of conscious and unconscious. Be-

CONCLUSION 313

haviorally each sort of consciousness seems to be a separate phe-
nomenon, a separate kind of function of the individual. Introspec-
tively, however, most observers agree that all the kinds have in
common the characteristic of awareness.

The solution to this whole problem is certainly not to be found
by tying either hand behind one's back, by neglecting either objec-
tive or subjective observation. It is becoming increasingly apparent
that often behavior which is accompanied by subjective awareness of
discrimination differs observably from behavior which is not. On the
other hand, it is obvious that processes accompanied by this sub-
jective awareness are so diverse that there is little reason for con-
sidering them to be a peculiar and separate class of phenomena. In
the future psychological science must study each process as an
individual function determined by intra- and extraorganismic fac-
tors, possibly having among its other characteristics such a neural
organization that it is accompanied by a subjective awareness of
discrimination. This awareness or its absence is frequently an im-
portant aspect of behavior, but it is only one aspect, and as such it
deserves exactly the same kind of study as do all the others.

INDEX

A, B, and C fibers, 138
AALL, A,, 223, 224, 268
Ablation of cortex, 95-97
Abnormal physiological causes, unconscious-
ness from, 23, 1 1 6, 127-129
Absent-mindedness, 23

case of, 54
Academic psychologists. See Psychologists,

academic.
Academic psychology, experiments of, not

applied to clinic, 1415
ACH, N., 167, 179, 262
Action-patterns, inherited, 240-244

vs. acquired, 244-245
Acuity, sensory, effect of attention on, 169-

170

Addition, latent, 138
ADES, H. W., 98
ADLER, A., i, 9
After-expulsion, 234
AGERBERG, J., 38, 101, 257
"Aha" experience, 204-205
ALEXANDFR, F., 35
ALFORD, L. B., 24, 106, 107, 275, 276
All-or-none law, 138, 140
ALLEN, W. F., 96
ALLERS, R., 237

ALLPORT, G. W., 10, n, 79, 221
ALPERT, A., 187

Alterative forgetting, 35, 216, 217-225
Amnesia, 212-238

case of, 6 1

hypnotic, 231232

hysterical, case of, 63

of impression, 3031, 212-214
criteria for, 30, 212213

of reproduction, 212, 215-238

of retention, 212, 214-215

posthypnotic, 301-302

Analysis, key procedure of laboratory psy-
chologists, 5
ANDERSON, J. E., 286
ANDREYEV, L. A., 98
Anesthesia, 116, 117, 129-130

conditioned responses and, 99-100

electrical waves from cortex during, 99
Animals, consciousness in, 23, 31
Anxiety, 252

motor components of, 13

Apes, anthropoid, experiments with, 186-

187
Aphasia, 275-276

syntactical, case of, 68-69
Applied psychology, academic psychology

and, ii

ARISTOTLE, 277
Association, mediate, 193-194
Attention, 159-182, 230, 249

as consciousness, 32-34, 159, 160

change of stimulation and, 173

distractabihty and, 174-176

economy of, 164

effect of, on development of unconscious

set, 171

on discrimination, 169-171, 268
on efficiency, 168-172
on reaction time, 168-169
on sensory acuity, 169-171

ex tensity of stimulation and, 173

frequency of stimulation and, 216

galvanic skin response and, 204

gradations of from focus to margin, 159

indices of loss or absence of, 33

insight and, 204-205

intensity of stimulation and, 173, 216

levels of, 176-178, 227, 230

motion of stimulation and, 173

motor aspects of, 159-162

primacy of stimulation and, 216

range of, 165-168

recency of stimulation and, 216

sensory apprehension and, 165

set and, 159-162

shifts of, 172-174

types of, 162-164

Attentive consciousness. See Attention.
Attitudes, 271

Attributive clearness, 163-164, 178
Automatic states, 178-181
Automatic writing, 180-181, 229
Automatograph, 206, 264
Autonomic nervous system, 259-261
AVELING, F., 83
"Awake" center, 104
AZAM, M., 211

BAKER, L. E., 151-152, 154, 267
BAKHTIAROV, V., 205

316

INDEX

BARBARA, M., 123
BARD, P., 105, 123, 129, 137
HARELARE, B., 241
BARKER, R. G., 264
BARRETT, W., 148
BARTLETT, F. C., 223, 268
BARTLETT, M. R., 133
Bcauchamp, Miss, 181, 228, 229

case of, 64-65
BEECHFR, H. K., 99, 130
Bchaviorists, 22, 26, 79, 80, 135

clinical, 81

discrimination criterion of consciousness
and, 22, 26-28

introspection and, 80
BEITEL, R. J., JR., 143
BFRGGREN, S., 126
BKRGSON, H., 276
BERNARD, L. L., 17, 36
BESPERMAN, T., 148
BLTLHEIM, S., 12
BICHOWSKY, F. R., 84
BILLINGS, M. LL R., 173, 177
Bins, A. G., in, 161, 162
BINLT, A., 1 66
BLAIR, E. A., 138, 142
Blake, W., 248
BLOCK, H., 162
BOHN, G., 121
BORING, E. G., 22, 26, 33, 105, no, 140,

141, 165, 169, 177, 210, 246
BOSTOCK, J., 113
BOURNE, W., 99
BRAGDEN, W., 28
Brain, electrical stimulation of, 84, 101, 109,

261-262, 267
case of, 66-67
Brain waves, 101-102, 117
BRAINARD, P. P., 187
BRISSLER, J., 151, 267
BRLrsciiNMDFR, E., 170, 178
BRI UER, J., i
BRIDGES, J. W., 270
BRILL, A. A., 38, 42, 43, 257
BROAD, C. D., 17, 25, 41, 42, 217
BROWN, J. F., 10, u, 12
BRUSH, E. N., 120
Bum FR, K M 204
BURDACH, K. F., 121
BURGE, W. B., 139

CABOT, A. T., 264
CAIRNRS, W. B., 166
CALVIN, J., 240

CALWELL, W., 105

CAMILLE, N., 125

CAMPION, G. C., 103

CANNON, W. B., 105, 242

CARDOT, H., in

CARLSON, A. }., in

CARMIUIAIL, L., 222, 245

CARPENTER, T. M., 259

CARUS, P., 103

Case history method, i, 75, 86-91

CASON, H., 40, 153, 162, 253, 260

Cats under anesthesia, conditioning in, 99

CATTELL, J. McK., 146

Censor, 78, 282

Central theories of consciousness, 100-107,

no-iii

Cerebral cortex. See Cortex.
Cerebrum, localisation of consciousness and,

100-102, 113

Change of stimulation, attention and, 173
CHARCOI, J. M., i, 9
CLAPARI ni , E , 122
CLARK, R. S , 108
Clark University, 10
Clearness, 268

attubutivc, 163-164, 178
cognitive, 163-164
Clever Hans, 149

Clinic, psychological See Psychology,
outgrowth of medical science, 3
use of case history method, i
Clinicians, psychological. See Psychologists,

clinical.

COAKLFY, J. D , 98

COBB, S., 47, 54, 62, 113, 127, 131
Coconscious, 19, 20-21, 228-230
Cognitive clearness, 163-164
COHFN, L. H., 142

COLFRIDGE, S. T., 57-59, 184, 191, 202

Collective nouns, dangers in use of, 75-78
Collective unconscious, 244, 246-247
COILIFR, R. M., 143, 179
Coma, 23, 116

Commumcability, evidence of consciousness,
38-41, 114, 267-292

memory and, 211-212

Communicable behavior and incommuni-
cable, differences between, 291-292
Communication, 39

attention and, 163

communicabihty and, 272

culture and, 279-284, 292

demand tor rationality of, 282-284, 292

limen and, 163

INDEX

317

Communication ( Continued)

limitations upon, 277-279, 292

threshold and, 163
Conclusion, unconscious, 186
Concussion, unconsciousness from, 23, 116,

127-129

Condensation, 221-222, 239
Conditioned responses, 93-100

anesthesia and, 98-100

arbitrary nature of, 284-286

as kind of memory, 35, 93, 212, 214

consciousness and, 93-100, 101, 257, 260

cortex and, 93-100, 101

curare and, 98

developed to subliminal stimuli, 153-155

drugs and, 99

forgetting and, 35, 214

in cats under anesthesia, 99

in lower animals, 96

intrautcrine development of, 244-245

involving involuntary functions, 260-261

spinal cord and, 97

subcortical development of, 96-100

unconscious development of, 196

unconsciousness and, 35, 94

volition and, 257, 260
Conditioning. See Conditioned responses.
Conscious. See also Unconscious.

ABLE TO COMMUNICATt, 154, 158, 255, 271,

304, 305, 307, 308, 309, 312. See

also COMMUNICABLE.
ACTING VOLUNTARILY, 292, 303, 306, 307,

308, 309, 310, 311, 312. See also

VOLUNTARY.
ATTEND1D, 163, 167, 171, l8o, l8l, 182,

200, 206, 208, 297. See also AT-

TENDIVG.
ATTENDING, 2OO, 300, 303, 307, 308, 31 I.

Internet Archive Audio

Featured

Top

Images

Featured

Top

Software

Featured

Top

Texts

Featured

Top

Video

Featured

Top

Mobile Apps

Browser Extensions

Archive-It Subscription

Save Page Now

Full text of "Unconsciousness"

See other formats